48 activists were arrested yesterday at the Keystone XL protest at the White House. Participants included artists, organizers, and financiers that were arrested, charged, and released.

Four dozen environmental activists succeeded in getting themselves arrested outside the White House on Wednesday afternoon to draw attention to their demand that President Obama reject construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

Julian Bond, the civil rights leader; Daryl Hannah, the actress;. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance; Bill McKibben, a longtime climate change campaigner; and James Hansen, a prominent climate scientist, were the celebrity faces of the arrestees, who zip-tied themselves to the White House fence and defied police orders to leave.

Surprising to many was the arrest of President of the Sierra Club, a group that up until yesterday never protested.

The future of the Keystone XL Pipeline is up to President Obama alone as it crosses an international boundary and is therefore under the purview of the State Department. The State Department is preparing a new environmental impact statement which will in theory help decide the recommendation to the President. In reality, this is about politics and the question is have activists turned up the heat enough on Climate Change?

Photo from Twitter