Stopping Keystone: A Step In The Right Direction

By Bergin Parks on 11/28/2011 @ 12:30 PM

Tags: Environment

The development of the Keystone XL pipeline was delayed by the Obama administration until at least 2013 for further review of environmental implications, and to study the possibility of an alternative route. This is heartening not only because it calls into question the feasibility of the entire project (Trans Canada now has to decide if they want to invest in more infrastructure for a less direct route), but more generally because it provides an indication that climate change concerns are being heard and acknowledged on a larger scale. The Keystone XL pipeline would have provided transport from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Canada down to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma and even further to the Gulf Coast, providing leak and rupture potential right on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, also known as “America’s well.”

Oil sands contain a super-viscous form of petroleum that through extraction, refining, transportation and consumer consumption can produce up to forty-five times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that conventional crude does. The over-arching concern with the Keystone project is that it represents an immense investment in dangerously dirty technology and backward thinking. Not only would the pipeline promote greater production of and access to fossil fuels, but it would take us further in the wrong direction in a time when our energy economy and the infrastructure that supports it should be undergoing fundamental change. The 12,000 of us who surrounded the white house November 6th sent a clear and unified message, as did the work of many individuals and coalitions behind the scenes. However, more work needs to be done. Neither America nor the world at large can afford any more regressive energy policy or tax breaks concerning fossil fuels.

Please write a letter to the editor of your local paper, or any paper, to express your concern.