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| Ashok Chandwaney of St. Mary’s College and others opposed to the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline march in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Oct. 7, 2011. |
... which Juliet Eilperin, the lead environmental reporter for The Washington Post, writes in today's paper is becoming "a political headache for White House."
Strange, because "more than 1,250 [protesters] were arrested in demonstrations outside the White House in late August and early September." How long has it been since the environment was at the heart of 1,250 street protest arrests? Has it ever happened?
I cheer the protests because I am vastly disappointed in the Obama administration's general lack of environmental oomph. It recently delayed strengthening national anti-smog standards, kicking that can down the road for at least a few more years.
True, the president has done well recently in negotiating higher fuel-mileage standards with automakers.
But Obama (joined by Senate Democratic leaders) has totally fizzled with respect to the cap-and-trade legislation that passed the House in 2009. When was the last time you heard anybody even mention trying to get it passed?
All that said, I have not been wholly sure about whether blocking the Keystone XL expansion is worth all the struggle and all the protests. I have wondered: is it not possible that it is, in fact, in the national interest to build it? Would not the thousands of jobs created in expanding the pipeline alone outweigh the environmental damage the pipeline might cause?
But I Now Say "No" to the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline Expansion
After a little research, I think the answer is no. It's a close call, but I now have to say the pipeline should not be built.
The pipeline is meant to transport oil extracted from tar sands in the boreal forests of Alberta, Canada. My research indicates that "the production process [for tar sands oil extraction and upgrading] alone generates three times as much global warming pollution as [that for] conventional crude."
"The emissions created from producing the tar sands oil piped through Keystone XL will increase carbon pollution by 27 million metric tons above emissions from the equivalent amount of conventional oil, according to the Environmental Protection Agency," says this discussion.
It's simply harder to extract useable petroleum from tar sands than from conventional oil wells. Energy has to be expended in doing so. That expenditure of energy which must be done to extract the oil and upgrade its low initial quality puts extra carbon into the atmosphere.
And there are further objections:
This discussion says the proposed pipeline expansion threatens Alberta's boreal forests, saying "the entire boreal forest [of the earth] ...
... stores almost twice as much carbon as tropical forests and nearly three times as much as temperate forests." And since "roughly 25 percent of global emissions" are absorbed by the planet's forests in general, any economic development that shrinks the earth's boreal forest delivers a body blow to the global climate.
What about the pipeline itself?
The route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline expansion is shown as a dashed yellow line on this map:
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| (The orange line is the existing Keystone pipeline.) |
Any leaks or spills from the central section of the pipeline expansion threaten to pollute the Ogallala aquifer ...
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| Ogallala Aquifer |
... which Wikipedia says is "is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States." The new pipeline would intersect the aquifer mainly in Nebraska.
An aquifer is a water table just under the surface of the ground into which wells are sunk to provide drinking water. An aquifer also provides water for farmland irrigation. The Ogallala aquifer, says Wikipedia, "yields about 30 percent of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. In addition, the aquifer system provides drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary."
In the wake of the recent Yellowstone oil spill, I for one do not place much confidence, if any at all, in the assurances of TransCanada that the proposed pipeline's threat to the aquifer is minimal.
Moreover, this discussion says the petroleum from the tar sands in Canada will, after flowing through the proposed U.S. pipeline, wind up (after being refined) being largely exported to markets abroad. It won't actually, as proponents claim, serve to increase our domestic supply of oil and gasoline.
Now, that's both good and bad. Good, because the money from selling the oil abroad will wind up mainly in U.S. pockets, particularly the pockets of workers in domestic refineries.
But also bad, because if the rationale for the pipeline is to decrease America's reliance on foreign oil, it won't really do that.
The Symbolism
It seems to me personally that the above arguments should be enough to kill the pipeline. Your mileage may vary ...
However, the true clincher for me is none of those rational arguments. Rather, it's symbolism. The protests ...
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| Woman being arrested during tar sands action on Aug. 29, 2011, in front of the White House. |
... have themselves changed the equation.
I don't think the Obama administration will retain much environmental credibility if it approves the pipeline now.
Don't get me wrong. I'm going to vote for Obama next year, as I did in 2008. If you think he isn't doing enough on the environment, you're right. But if a Republican gets into the White House in 2013, imagine the rollbacks of whatever meager environmental victories we've had under Obama!
Even so, we're now past the point where rational cost-benefits analyses can decide pro or con about the pipeline. The sheer symbolism of the protests and the associated pressure has tipped the debate irrevocably against the pipeline.
As I've been saying in this blog, more and more it's not just the economy, "It's the ecology, stupid!"
Yet there are times — and this is one of them — when it's the symbolism, stupid!
Mr. President, kill this pipeline!
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