Over the last few months, we've discussed the courageous activists pushing back against efforts by fossil-fuel titans Kinder Morgan and Spectra Energy to impose unwanted pipelines upon Massachusetts residents via eminent domain.

Of course, the Bay State isn't alone in waging this fight against polluters who have exploited eminent domain in an attempt to double their dollars: activists in Illinois are waging a remarkably similar battle--with recent legal success--against the Dakota Access pipeline, a dirty-energy project backed by, among others, a Koch Brothers front group. 

Tabitha Tripp and other positive forces in the Prairie State are to be commended for their efforts. The fight against entrenched fossil-fuel power is perhaps the most arduous of political and legal battles; the enemies of climate progress count on being able to exhaust the opposition emotionally and spiritually. Yet the enemies of climate progress consistently underestimate the tenacity and resolve of climate hawks.

What the polluters don't know about us is that we have a moral obligation not to give up. We're in this fight to protect future generations--and the nobility and morality of this fight gives us strength even when our minds and bodies are exhausted.

The energy generated by fighting for this moral cause is a renewable resource. Those of us fighting dirty energy in Massachusetts, Illinois and across this great land are brothers and sisters in the same struggle--and when it comes to protecting Mother Earth, we put family first.

…D.R. Tucker