environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility Keystone XL media irresponsibility Tar Sands
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Year 3, Month 11, Day 22: Show Me What You Do And I Will Tell You What You Believe
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune runs a McClatchy article titled, “Pressure builds on Obama over oil pipeline: Jobs vs. climate change.” SOS:
WASHINGTON – President Obama’s decision on whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline looms huge now that the election is over, and it could define Obama’s legacy on energy and climate change.
The oil industry, which is pushing hard for approval, describes the choice as the president’s “first test to the American people.”
Environmental groups are promising that thousands of activists will demonstrate against the pipeline on Sunday outside the White House, just the beginning of the efforts that are being planned to sink the project.
Energy analyst Charles Ebinger said he thought two weeks ago that there was little chance Obama would kill the pipeline. But he’s increasingly less sure about that.
Gotta stop the pipeline; gotta stop the “jobs vs. environment” bullshit meme. Sent November 18:
The notion that responsible environmental policies are “job-killers” is one of the most egregious falsehoods promulgated by fossil fuel spokespeople. The economy and the environment are only in opposition to one another if our notion of economic well-being is predicated on continuous consumption and continuous growth — inherently impossible on a finite planet. Wise economic policy recognizes that wealth is derived from the sustainable stewardship of Earth’s natural resources. This self-evident truth is ignored by those whose self-interest depends on maximizing short-term profits.
Coincidentally, theirs are the same voices eagerly pressing for Administration approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, a fossil-fuel exploitation strategy of near-sociopathic irresponsibility. Yes, the Keystone XL will generate jobs: cleanup specialists, leak stoppage crews, and (eventually) oncologists. If fossil fuel corporations could rebrand themselves simply as energy delivery corporations, their technology and resources would make them essential to the sustainable economy our country needs so urgently.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: anarchy Barack Obama scientific consensus sustainability Tar Sands
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Year 3, Month 5, Day 21: Tangled Up In Blue
James Hansen is (justifiably) shrill:
GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
I revere Hansen, but I am not so certain about the phrase “game over.” Sent May 10:
Scientists are not known for their extreme language, so when a respected (and unjustly maligned) authority like James Hansen uses words like “apocalyptic” it should be a huge flashing warning light for the rest of us. But “game over for the climate” carries a host of misleading implications.
Earth’s climate is not a sport, and the human species isn’t going to get another chance in next year’s playoffs. Neither is it a video game; we’re not going to yawn, stretch, get another handful of chips, and begin again. When we hear Dr. Hansen’s phrase, we need to imagine a planet-wide version of the football riots in Egypt that killed nine people and injured thousands earlier this year.
Recovering from the inevitable consequences of our profligate consumption of fossil fuels will take hundreds of years; halting the potential disasters likely by mid-century will demand civilizational transformations.
This is not a game.
Warren Senders
environment: economics Keystone XL sustainability Tar Sands
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Year 3, Month 2, Day 19: Toxic Crude
Joe Nocera, in the New York Times, tries to reconcile the Keystone XL with the problems of climate change:
Here’s the question on the table today: Can a person support the Keystone XL oil pipeline and still believe that global warming poses a serious threat?
To my mind, the answer is yes. The crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, which the pipeline would transport to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, simply will not bring about global warming apocalypse. The seemingly inexorable rise in greenhouse gas emissions is the result of deeply ingrained human habits, which will not change if the pipeline is ultimately blocked. The benefits of the oil we stand to get from Canada, via Keystone, far outweigh the environmental risks.
Uhhhhhhh-huhhhhhhhhh. Sent February 14:
The planetary environment is already well on its way down the tubes, thanks to the past century’s worth of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. From that perspective, the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline’s contribution to our civilization’s ongoing climaticide is all but irrelevant. Why deny a comforting cigarette to a terminal-stage lung cancer patient?
But Bill McKibben and other environmental activists aren’t prepared to accept the inevitability of doom. From their perspective, it is absolutely crucial that, having recognized we are in a deep and inhospitable hole, we stop digging as quickly as possible.
The pro-pipeline rationale is (rather like the tar sands oil itself) a toxic mix of ingredients. Part petro-boosterism, part profit-mongering, and part “hippie-punching,” the arguments of Keystone XL proponents embody both moral and imaginative failures. Our long-term energy economy must be sustainable if our species is to survive the coming centuries.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Keystone XL NIMBY NOMP Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 11, Day 16: Who Put The NOMP In The Bomp Bomp Bomp?
The Nebraska Journal-Star talks about the pipeline postponement:
Break out the champagne! The State Department decision to study routes to avoid Nebraska’s beautiful and ecologically sensitive Sandhills is a victory against long odds.
It’s hard to imagine a decision that could and would be hailed by everyone from conservative Gov. Dave Heineman to liberal Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska to environmentalist Ken Winston of the Sierra Club, but that’s the case in this rare confluence of concerns and priorities.
Now there’s a reasonable chance that the Keystone XL pipeline project will never rip a slow-to-heal gash across the Sandhills.
The statement from the State Department emphasized that the concern expressed by Nebraskans had been a key factor in the decision to delay the project.
{snip}
This is a one-time opportunity. Cynics wonder whether it would have been granted at all if it had not provided a convenient excuse for the Obama administration to delay a final decision until after the elections next year.
As readers of this page know, the Journal Star editorial board called more than a year ago for the pipeline route to be moved to avoid the Sandhills. We think the pipeline needs to be built, just not through the Sandhills.
I wanted to expand on the “Not On My Planet” theme, and this editorial was a perfect hook. Sent November 12:
NIMBY — “Not In My Backyard.” When your editorial writers say, “We think the pipeline needs to be built, just not through the Sandhills,” it’s a classic example of this way of thinking.
It’s often reasonable to relocate obvious hazards and inconveniences so they don’t endanger lives or disrupt communities, but the Keystone XL pipeline is not such a case. The likely impact of leaks and spillage on sensitive aquifers is only one of many reasons to block the project; while relocation may reduce the chance of water contamination, this doesn’t do a thing about the destruction of huge amounts of Canadian boreal forest, or the devastating CO2 emissions that are an inevitable consequence of burning the dirty crude of the tar sands. And it won’t do a thing about weaning our nation from its addiction to oil.
NIMBY is an inadequate response to the Keystone XL. We need to say NOMP — “Not On My Planet!”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 11, Day 15: This Hurts You More Than It Hurts Me. Or Something.
The San Francisco Chronicle reprints an article from the Houston Chronicle on the Good Decision Rationalized Stupidly:
The Obama administration said Thursday that it will consider alternative routes for the Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid ecologically sensitive areas of America’s heartland – a move that delays a final decision on the controversial project until after the 2012 election.
The move solves a political dilemma for President Obama, who risked alienating key voting blocs no matter what decision he made on the pipeline that would carry Canadian oil sands crude from Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas. The project pitted environmentalists against some labor unions and the oil industry, and Obama would have been delivering a verdict before an election that could turn on who can do the most to turn around the nation’s ailing economy.
Sheesh. Sent November 10:
Eternally cautious, the Obama administration continues to hedge on the feasibility of the Keystone XL pipeline. While the postponement of a final decision on tar sands development until 2013 was cheered by environmentalists, the White House’s public rationale ducks the issue of climate change entirely, focusing on possible damage to water supplies.
Here’s the thing: the pipeline’s a terrible idea on multiple levels. The inevitable leaks will contaminate one of the nation’s most important aquifers with carcinogens; extracting tar sands oil is going to devastate huge expanses of forest, leaving a moonscape behind and eliminating a critical carbon sink — and putting all that CO2 into the atmosphere will kick global warming into overdrive, pushing the Earth down the path to an ever-bleaker future.
Usually, “not in my back yard” denotes a local or regional concern. When it comes to the Keystone XL, we need to say “Not In My Planet.”
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 11, Day 7: We Break It, We Buy It
The Washington Post notes that President Obama is going to “take ownership” of the decision on the Keystone XL project:
President Obama said Tuesday that he will decide whether to approve or deny a permit for a controversial 1,700-mile Canadian oil pipeline, rather than delegating the decision to the State Department.
The proposal by the firm TransCanada to ship crude extracted from a region in Alberta called the “oil sands” to Gulf Coast refineries has become a charged political issue for the White House. Labor unions and business groups argue that it would create thousands of jobs in the midst of an economic downturn. Environmentalists — who plan to ring the White House in a protest on Sunday — say the extraction of the oil will accelerate global warming and the pipeline itself could spill, polluting waterways and causing severe environmental harm.
Anything is better than our hopelessly corrupt State Department. And anything is better than writing another damn letter about Richard Muller. Sent November 3:
In his November 2008 election-night speech in Chicago, Barack Obama offered a vision of the country that extended a century into the future, contrasting the life of a centenarian voter with the lives his two young daughters could expect to lead.
It is depressingly rare to find national leaders in our country who are capable of thinking beyond the next election cycle; America’s great historical figures, by contrast, are the ones who have risen above political exigency to address the needs of our longer-term future. That night in Grant Park, our president-elect showed himself capable of thinking in centuries.
We must remind Barack Obama to start thinking long-term once again when it comes to the oil of the Canadian tar sands. If he addresses the needs of the coming centuries rather than those of the fossil-fuel industry, he’ll recognize that the Keystone XL pipeline is a multi-generational disaster in the making.
Warren Senders
environment: corporate irresponsibility Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 10: Crude Cash.
The October 6 edition of the Lincoln, NE Journal-Star includes a piece on an upcoming meeting between TransCanada’s big cheeses and Nebraska government officials:
Three Nebraska lawmakers will meet Tuesday afternoon in Norfolk to discuss concerns with TransCanada officials over the route of the company’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline through the state.
The meeting was arranged by Speaker Mike Flood of Norfolk, who said Wednesday that the Legislature must move cautiously but deliberately in dealing with the pipeline issue.
The $7 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline proposed by TransCanada would carry oil from tar-sands deposits near Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The project has drawn fire from people who fear an oil leak would be disastrous because the pipeline would pass through Nebraska’s Sandhills region and over the massive Ogallala Aquifer, which provides irrigation and drinking water to a wide swath of the central United States.
Just because these people control billions of dollars is no reason to trust them an inch. Sent Oct. 6:
There are a great many factors Nebraska lawmakers should be considering when they meet with representatives of TransCanada, the corporation behind the Keystone XL pipeline. Some are obvious: all pipelines leak, and a proposed route that carries staggering quantities of extremely “dirty” oil over the Ogallala Aquifer is a disaster waiting to happen.
TransCanada officials won’t acknowledge that spills and leaks are inevitable, but they’ll probably offer the stringent regulations they’re imposing on pipeline operators (in Nebraska and other states along the way) as assurance that the project is extremely safe.
Lawmakers should remember that the oil industry has a long and ugly record of ignoring its own protocols, stonewalling investigations, manipulating evidence, and using its financial resources to corrupt the government agencies responsible for enforcing compliance with environmental regulations. Absent a vigorous, well-funded and incorruptible enforcement agency, TransCanada’s promises of safety aren’t worth a single drop of Ogallala water.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 7: Such Models Of Friendship Are Precious And Rare
The Omaha World-Herald reports on the latest FOIA release of correspondence between a TransCanada lobbyist and his former employees — the U.S. State Department:
WASHINGTON — A group opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline says a fresh batch of emails it released Monday shows the State Department is biased in favor of the project.
In one email exchange from a little over a year ago, pipeline lobbyist Paul Elliott forwarded a press release to State Department official Marja Verloop touting an endorsement of the pipeline by Montana Sen. Max Baucus.
“Go Paul! Baucus support holds clout,” Verloop responded.
Environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth describes that email as a State Department employee literally rooting for the lobbyist and his effort to win approval of the Keystone XL.
The pipeline would carry 700,000 barrels of oil a day from tar-sand strip mines in western Canada to oil refineries on America’s Gulf Coast. It would cross Nebraska’s Sand Hills and the underground Ogallala Aquifer along the way.
This is the second round of emails that Friends of the Earth has obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and then released. The company behind the pipeline, TransCanada Inc., and the State Department have both said there have been no inappropriate interactions.
Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Sent October 3:
When our political environment has been so thoroughly contaminated by the vast financial power of multinational oil corporations, we shouldn’t be too surprised at an incestuous connection between a lobbyist for the Keystone XL pipeline and his former bosses in the State Department.
This pollution of our political environment is all too likely to find its counterpart in the “real world” of complex interdependent ecosystems. Calling TransCanada’s project a catastrophe waiting to happen is like calling Beethoven’s Ninth a “nice tune.” At multiple scales, from the inevitable leaks along the pipeline’s length to the destruction of vast swaths of boreal forest, and the potential for a devastating escalation of global climate change, the Keystone XL is a symphony of disaster.
It’s distressing that the U.S. State Department and its erstwhile employee turned pipeline lobbyist are singing from the same page. President Obama should revoke the Department’s authority over the pipeline.
Warren Senders
environment: corporate irresponsibility Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 21: I Love You. The Check Is In The Mail. I Promise Not To Leak Oil In Your Aquifer.
More specious pro-pipeline nonsense, this time reprinted in the September 16 issue of the Sacramento Bee:
Opponents object for two main reasons: First, they want to discourage the mining of oil sands. No question, tearing up boreal forests and ancient peat bogs to get at the petroleum within can’t help but degrade the land. The resulting semi-solid form of oil is dirtier than the smooth-flowing crude just below the Arabian desert. As with any fossil fuel, burning it pumps carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere, and emissions from processing this particular form of fuel pose a problem as well. On the plus side, the technology used to exploit oil sands is improving from the old strip-mining techniques, curbing the environmental costs.
The other big worry is more of a scare tactic than a valid concern. Pipelines can leak. But to hear the anti-Keystone crowd tell it, you would think this one is about to be connected to kitchen sinks and lawn sprinklers from coast to coast. The fear-mongering about aquifers being polluted and wildlife habitat destroyed has no basis in reality. On the contrary, plans call for a state-of-the-art system, subject to rigorous inspections. America already has oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing the country and the Canadian border. This one, an expansion of a pipeline that already runs to downstate Illinois, will be built to a high safety standard.
Assholes. Sent September 17:
Advocates of the Keystone XL pipeline never state some of the crucial assumptions underlying their words. When we hear statements like “America is going to need that oil,” we should make a point of questioning them a little more assertively, and responding with some questions of our own.
Are millions of acres of boreal forests less important than our right to drive multi-ton vehicles to work — alone? Are poorly insulated homes more valuable than uncontaminated aquifers? Is the prospect of an irreversible climatic tipping point less scary than the thought of the world’s oil tycoons sacrificing a few profit points?
And we should remember BP’s excellent-looking plans for spill protection and remediation in the Gulf of Mexico, and ask: why should we believe TransCanada’s promise of a “state-of-the-art” pipeline, complete with a rigorous inspection schedule? Since when has the oil industry ever exemplified truthfulness, responsibility and good citizenship?
Warren Senders
environment: corporate irresponsibility Tar Sands
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 18: Same Ol’ Same Ol’
The Louisville KY Courier-Journal runs a guest OpEd by Curtis Morrison and Tyler Hess, who are shrill:
Deep below the bio-diverse boreal forest of Canada’s Albertan province, there lies a secret. A sleeping monster so daunting, sensible people wouldn’t imagine awaking him. Its ensuing wrath could bring unprecedented chaos. As one of many culpable predators, the monster’s prey could include much of life on Earth. in size, it lies largely unperturbed. Should President Obama awake it?
This monster is not Bigfoot. Actually observable and truly capable of widespread destruction, the monster we illustrate is the bitumen sludge contained in the Albertan tar sands. Extracting it would ultimately have consequences to our climate that should bring logical brains and compassionate hearts to a raging boil.
Sent September 6:
At a time when we should be trying to kick the fossil-fuel habit entirely, the Keystone XL’s backers would have us believe that the project is environmentally responsible and essential to our country’s energy economy. It is neither.
TransCanada and its subcontractors loudly trumpet their adherence to environmental protection standards exceeding current regulations. Given the oil industry’s long history of mendacity and malfeasance, I don’t find this reassuring. We’re told the tar sands oil will benefit America’s consumers — but a recent study from Oil Change International shows that Alberta’s crude is primarily destined for foreign markets.
And, ultimately, we must heed climatologist James Hansen’s words: burning the tar sands oil means “game over” for the climate of Earth — and for all of us who live on it. The pipeline is a spectacularly bad idea, promoted by unscrupulous and profit-driven people. The President should block the Keystone XL.
Warren Senders