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A protest at the White House against a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands is emerging as the biggest green civil disobedience campaign in a generation, organisers said.

A short film capturing the first day of training and White House sit-in that launched the Tar Sands Action, a protest of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. More info at www.tarsandsaction.org.

Opponents of hydraulic "fracking" say it pollutes water and causes illness. Actor, activist (and newly-minted Countdown contributor) Mark Ruffalo joins Keith to discuss the lucrative practice that potentially threatens supplies of drinking water, and why so many have their heads in the sand. "This is an industry that is the dirtiest, slimiest, most arrogant, and negligent that you can imagine," Ruffalo says. Ruffalo also talks about rumors of blacklisting actors who speak out on political matters, and ponders why he was singled out by CNN to comment on it.  "You can do what's right or you can put your head in the sand," Ruffalo tells Keith, shortly before Keith bestows the ultimate Countdown honor -- welcoming Ruffalo into the ranks of official on-air contributors.

While we have the illusion of choice in our politics, the only real consistency in policy-making is Washington's commitment to war and oil, and increasingly often, war for oil. Libya was the oil dealer to Western Europe, but the market for oil is global. And oil is the prize, not democracy. This is …

We've got 2,000 people signed up to come to Washington and get arrested outside the White House between August 20 and September 3, all in an effort to persuade President Obama not to grant a permit for a new pipeline from the tar sands of Canada.

In other words, the nation's highest government safety official and one of our most respected private pipeline safety experts both agreed: tar sands crude poses troubling challenges to pipeline safety that we, as a nation, have yet to address. To move forward would be rolling the dice.

Led by the Nobel Women's Initiative, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, along with seven other Nobel laureates, have written and sent President Obama a letter, urging him to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. -- CW/RSN