environment Politics: Barack Obama fossil fuels Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 4, Month 2, Day 12: Bad Guys Finish, Period.
More on the Keystone Clusterf**k, from the West Virginia Gazette:
President Obama hasn’t publicly drawn a connection between climate change and the Keystone XL pipeline, but new pressure is building on him and other officials to connect those dots.
Protests are springing up from Maine to Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma urging leaders to stop the Keystone XL and other oil sands import projects on climate change grounds. The Texas-bound Keystone XL is the biggest of many projects being proposed to connect Canada’s oil sands to U.S. refineries and export ports. Protesters claim the pipelines would commit the United States and other countries to a form of heavy oil that would worsen global warming.
On Jan. 26, some 1,400 people marched through Portland, Maine, against possible plans to move oil from Canada’s tar sands mines to local ports for export. Days earlier, hundreds of people joined solidarity rallies across New England and in Canada, where they picketed outside gas stations, locked arms along bridges, and hoisted signs that read “Tar Sands (equals) Game Over for Climate.” On Monday, indigenous rights activists in Texas and Oklahoma filled public squares to show support for efforts by Canada’s First Nations to block oil sands growth.
“We’re trying to build the social movement” against expansion of tar sands oil extraction, said Sophie Robinson, who organized events through the Massachusetts chapter of 350.org, a grassroots organization that focuses on climate change.
I’m gonna keep recycling the “this ain’t no game” trope till it gets some traction. February 4:
Whether it’s the inevitable spillage and aquifer contamination, the vast acreage of forests destroyed, the reinforcement of a global fossil-fuel addiction, or the devastating impact the Tar Sands oil will make on the already accelerating greenhouse effect, there can be no doubt that the Keystone XL pipeline project is a collection of disasters waiting to happen. But “game over for the climate,” a phrase popular among anti-pipeline activists, gives a misleading picture of what those disasters will do to North America and the world.
The after-effects of a game are limited to the playing field. If your team loses, just wait for next week, or next month, or next year. But more and more scientists are realizing with alarm that the possible consequences of a 4-degree centigrade increase in planetary temperature may include a complete collapse of the agriculture upon which our lives depend. The introduction of Tar Sands oil into the consumption chain will speed that increase, possibly irrevocably.
Earth’s climate is no game, and when it’s over, there’s no rematch, no mulligan, no “wait for next year,” no reset button. It’s just finished — and so are we. President Obama must block the Keystone XL.
Warren Senders
Education environment: 350.org divestment economics Keystone XL responsibility
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Year 4, Month 2, Day 8: I Don’t Want Him To Be Comfortable If He’s Going To Look Too Funny
The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that fossil-fuel divestment turns out to hold little or no liability for college endowments:
College-endowment managers who resist the growing call to divest their holdings in fossil-fuel companies may be doing so for little or no financial reason, according to a new report.
An analysis released on Tuesday by the Aperio Group, an investment-management firm that offers its clients a “socially responsible index,” among other investment strategies, found that while divesting from fossil-fuel companies does not necessarily add value to a portfolio, it does not subtract value from it either, and it increases the risk to investors at such a modest level as to be negligible.
In recent months, student groups at more than 200 colleges across the country have begun pushing their institutions to divest from fossil-fuel companies. A handful of smaller institutions, including Unity College and Hampshire College, have recently adopted strategies to reduce their investments in such companies, but most colleges have responded warily to the notion.
No doubt part of that wariness is that fossil-fuel companies are viewed as reliable profit generators, and divesting from them is seen as a financial handicap, even less attractive at a time when endowments have struggled because of the recession.
Because we won’t be responsible if it costs us anything. Sent January 31:
While it’s encouraging to know that college endowments aren’t likely to suffer from shedding fossil-fuel investments, divestment would be a good idea regardless of its economic impacts on university portfolios. The business model of big oil and coal companies is profoundly destructive, relying as it does on reintroducing millions of years’ worth of fossilized carbon into the atmosphere each year in a geological eyeblink, without regard for the climatic consequences.
While “bottom-line” rationales are popular and convenient, we must remember that one of the deepest goals of higher education is the inculcation of a broad sense of responsibility to and for the greater social good. We do not teach subjects; we teach human beings — and the quality of our teaching is reflected in our students’ commitment to a better future.
And there is no surer guarantee of a worse future than continued support of fossil fuels. They may be hugely profitable, but fossil fuel corporations epitomize an irresponsible disregard for our shared Earthly heritage and the continued happiness and prosperity of our descendants, and colleges and universities investing in them are abdicating their institutional responsibilities to our common posterity.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes Barack Obama denialists economics idiots Keystone XL Senate Republicans Tar Sands
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Year 4, Month 2, Day 2: Block That Kick!
The Washington Post runs an AP story on John Kerry’s stance on climate change and the Keystone XL pipeline:
In his opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said that American foreign policy “is defined by life-threatening issues like climate change,” along with political unrest in Africa and human trafficking across the globe. Kerry, the panel’s outgoing chairman, has made the issue of global warming central to his career in public service. The Massachusetts Democrat has traveled repeatedly to international climate negotiations and pushed in the Senate — unsuccessfully — for a limit on national greenhouse gas emissions.
Later this year, the State Department must decide whether to grant TransCanada a presidential permit to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline extension, which would carry heavy crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to America’s Gulf Coast refineries. Climate activists warn that the project would be devastating to the planet, while proponents say it would boost the nation’s energy security and generate short-term construction jobs.
We’ll see about that. Sent January 26:
Given his record of respect for evidence and expertise, John Kerry’s acceptance of the scientific consensus on climate change is unsurprising. Conservatives arguing that action on global warming is too expensive operate from a stance of multiple denial: they reject the climate science substantiating the greenhouse effect’s dangerous consequences, they reject the economic evidence that investment in clean energy and sound environmental practices are net positives for job creation, and they reject the fact that a significant majority of Americans recognize that climate change is a problem with huge repercussions for our nation and the world. It’s no accident that these same fact-rejecting politicians are the ones advocating strongly for the Keystone XL pipeline, a project whose likely contribution to climate change could well tip the balance from disastrous to catastrophic.
As Secretary of State and as a member of the “reality-based community,” Mr. Kerry must block the pipeline project.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: economics Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 4, Month 1, Day 31: Don’t Mention The War!
The Toronto Star reflects on the Keystone XL:
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, joined by 10 U.S. governors, released a letter recently urging President Barack Obama to swiftly approve the Keystone XL pipeline project.
As always, the argument is simple, and narrowly framed: 1. Canada has a lot of oil and the U.S. needs oil. 2. We don’t have enough pipeline capacity to handle our ambition for unconstrained growth in oilsands production. 3. Building the pipeline will create jobs.
What could be simpler? Nothing — as long as you pretend climate change doesn’t exist and don’t make it part of the conversation.
Post-Hurricane Sandy and scorching heat waves in the mid-west, that’s becoming a less tenable argument, at least in the U.S. In his second inaugural address, Obama called attention to the need for action on climate change, calling for America to lead the transition to sustainable energy sources. It’s an important reminder that we need to look at the issue through a different frame, one that pipeline project proponents and many in government are trying hard to avoid.
Scientists are telling us that, to avoid the worst effects of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2017 and drop drastically by 2050. The International Energy Agency (IEA) — a leading voice on energy research and analysis of which Canada is a member — recently reported that unless we change course, by 2017 the energy infrastructure will be in place to produce the emissions that will take us across the 2°C warming threshold. The U.S. and Canada (under our current federal government), along with many other countries, have agreed to work to avoid crossing this threshold, the point at which our climate may become seriously destabilized. Furthermore, the IEA tells us that, to stay under 2°C warming, two-thirds of all known fossil fuel reserves will have to stay in the ground.
Never mention the CC word. Ever. Sent January 24:
The economic arguments for exploiting the tar sands — oil is cheap; society needs that energy to continue economic growth — are analogous to the self-serving rationalizations of addicts everywhere.
Oil’s always been expensive; we’ve just left its significant costs for our descendants to pay. Neither post-extraction cleanup or public health impacts are usually included in our calculations — and, of course, the catastrophic consequences of accelerating climate change must never be mentioned or considered.
The economic growth argument is a failure both on intellectual (we live on a finite planet) and moral (recall Edward Abbey’s statement that growth for its own sake is “the ideology of the cancer cell”) grounds.
The Keystone pipeline’s not just a single disaster in the making, but multiple disasters on different scales of size and time. For the sake of our posterity, the Tar Sands oil must stay in the ground.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama corporate irresponsibility Keystone XL Tar Sands
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Year 3, Month 11, Day 23: All Of The Heavies Were Light As A Feather
The Pasadena Star’s Steve Cauzillo wonders about our President’s taste for the fight:
“I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”
-President Barack Obama, Nov. 14, 2012THE president has been sending signals on the environment like policy test balloons. He mentioned climate change twice since re-election, once during his victory speech and during a press conference at the White House.
Though he was cautious to say the inordinate number of freak storms lately (i.e., Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast) can’t be traced with cause-and- effect accuracy to climate change, he did confirm his belief that the globe is getting warmer. He and 98 percent of all the scientists in the world agree that humans contribute to global warming, mostly due to industrialization which produces more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Of course, the next four years will be about avoiding the fiscal cliff, fixing tax policies, lowering the deficit and creating an economy in which employers can expand and new businesses can sprout.
But, even in that context, Obama told the press that much has been accomplished to reduce energy use. Cars are getting better gas mileage due to stricter standards. Wind, solar and biomass plants are opening up to provide electrical energy.
“If, on the other hand, we can shape an agenda that says we can create jobs, advance growth, and make a serious dent in climate change and be an international leader, I think that’s something that the American people would support,” said the president.
Now we’re talking.
We shall see. Sent November 18:
While the President often talks a good game on climate issues, it is often disturbingly evident that other members of his staff regard them as irrelevant distractions — presumably from the economic questions that dominate the news cycle and the rhetoric of the President’s conservative adversaries. Mr. Obama’s apparent renewal of commitment to addressing climate change can have no more definitive test than his approval or rejection of the disastrous Keystone XL project.
Keystone is catastrophic on multiple levels of scale. The destruction of millions of acres of boreal forest in order to exploit Canada’s tar sands is already an environmental blunder of huge proportions. Transporting the filthy oil across the US offers the potential for hundreds of local and regional disasters from leaks and contaminated aquifers — and, or course, burning all that oil will send the greenhouse effect into a drastic runaway zone from which recovery may be impossible. If President Obama allows the pipeline project to proceed, we will know that his commitment to the fight against global warming is inadequate to the magnitude of the crisis.
Warren Senders
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: 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: Keystone XL
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Year 3, Month 1, Day 24: The Horror, The Horror!
At least temporarily, the pipeline from/to Hell has been stopped. The South Dakota Argus-Leader has more:
President Obama denied TransCanada a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline Wednesday, blaming congressional Republicans for setting an “arbitrary” deadline that didn’t allow time to thoroughly review the controversial project.
The pipeline developer said it will reapply, with a new goal of coming online in two years.
“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a prepared statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision.”
The 1,700-mile pipeline would carry heavy Canadian crude through South Dakota and five other states to the Gulf Coast. It has ignited criticism from environmentalists and landowners along the route and has become a boiling political fight.
Let’s hope it sticks. Sent January 19:
President Obama’s decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline is certainly going to cost jobs. Let’s look at some of them.
Of course there are the short-term construction jobs involved in putting the thing in place to begin with. But some of those other jobs that won’t be added to our economy would have lasted longer. For example, jobs in cleanup and spill mitigation. If there’s one thing we know about pipelines, it’s that they leak — and a 1,700 mile pipeline would leak a lot, guaranteeing cleanup jobs for the forseeable future. And of course, if that toxic crude entered our aquifers, there’d be public health impacts for decades to come. Think of all those lost employment opportunities in long-term chronic care positions!
And of course, should people get sick from environmental devastation, they’ll consider legal action. By spiking the pipeline, President Obama has closed off a century’s worth of economically stimulating class-action lawsuits.
While its true that there’s a growing market for jobs in renewable energy, the sad fact is that toxic waste specialists, oncologists, and tort experts will have to look somewhere else for their bread and butter. Such a shame.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility idiots Keystone XL Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 12, Day 20: That’s A Libel On The Good Name of Weasels
The Arkansas Times-Record runs a story about purported jobs purportedly at stake from not doing the Keystone XL:
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., pointed to the fate of 60 employees of Welspun Tubular as reason to support construction of the Keystone pipeline.
“They say miles of pipeline are on the property and that has caused five dozen employees to lose their jobs,” Terry said. “The pipes would be part of the Keystone oil pipeline which is a project running from Canada to Texas.”
“The president has said he would veto the bill,” Terry said. “Mr. President, this is about creating jobs. Please join us.”
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., brought up the same issue Wednesday on the Senate floor.
“Welspun Tubular Company, which makes pipes for the oil industry, has been producing pipe for the Keystone project. Unfortunately, due to the administration’s delay on Keystone, the company has already begun to lay workers off in Little Rock. They have 500 miles of pipe that was produced for the project, ready to go, that is just sitting at the facility,” Boozman said.
Boozman blamed politics for the delay, noting that the State Department has said a permit decision could not be delivered until after November 2012.
“President Obama needs to quit pandering to the radical environmentalists. He needs to do what is best for the country, not what he perceives is best for his re-election,” Boozman said.
Boozman, has also co-sponsored legislation that would require a construction permit to be issued within 60 days of passage.
Sociopaths. Hypocrites. Weasels. Sent Dec. 16:
In accusing President Obama of “pandering to radical environmentalists,” Senator Boozman’s remarks on the Keystone XL controversy inadvertently describe his own party’s pro-oil strategy. For decades, Republicans have branded many genuinely concerned and patriotic Americans with such grossly misleading descriptions — but the real pandering is taking place on their side of the aisle.
As for the “radical” tag, there are indeed those who espouse extreme action on environmental issues; their positions should be repudiated by any responsible citizen. Perhaps the most drastic thing these malefactors are advocating is the actual physical alteration of the air we breathe; these extremists propose to increase atmospheric CO2 levels to levels last found when dinosaurs walked the Earth. Surely that’s far more radical than the statements of anti-pipeline activists, who are simply pointing out that the long-term health and prosperity of our species should take precedence over the return-on-investment demands of multinational corporations.
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