On Thursday, July 26, the Campus Progress National Conference hosted a panel titled “Rising from the Tar Sands: building on the Keystone Victory and Growing the Environmental Movement.” The panel was moderated by Quentin James, national director of the Sierra Student Coalition, and panelists included Bill McKibben (pictured above at the right), president and co-founder of 350.org; Navin Nayak (pictured above in the center), senior vice president for campaigns with the League of Conservation Voters; and Courtney Hight (pictured above at the left), deputy political director of the Sierra Club. It focused on the ongoing debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and the role young people have to play in the climate change movement.

In February, an estimated 12,000 tar sands activists surrounded the White House to demand that President Obama deny the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Following the protest and almost 800,000 signatures on a petition against Keystone XL, the president agreed to delay the permitting until at least 2013.

At the panel, McKibben called the White House protest and subsequent permitting delay the “high-water mark” in the fight against tar sands, but also warned that defeating Keystone XL is “by no means a done deal ...

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