Keystone XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

Speaker Boehner has indicated that one of the first items on his agenda is to pass a bill authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline.  Several media outlets, such as Politico (here) are indicating that it is possible that with the new Congress, there will be a veto proof majority to overturn a veto of such legislation by President Obama.  President Obama has said that he would only permit the Keystone pipeline if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution".

If you need some background on the science of the pollution to be caused by the Keystone pipeline, I would suggest an article in the Scientific American entitled "How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming" (here) and an article in The Guardian entitled "What tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline mean for climate change" (here).  A quick summary of the scientific facts is that the Keystone pipeline by encouraging and increasing the development of the tar sands will significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.  Consequently, President Obama should immediately prevent the Keystone pipeline from being approved.

One of the arguments in favor of the Keystone pipeline is an increase in jobs.  Of course, as  the rate of global warming increases the need to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and to overcome the negative impact of global warming will produce lots of jobs but none of them will be permanent.  The other argument is that this oil will be produced, processed and sold whether there is a pipeline or not so why stop it.  That argument is only true if we continue to use fossil fuels when there are viable alternative energy sources that would be much less expensive for the society to develop and utilize.  The last argument is that China and other developing nations are continuing to pollute at an astounding rate so we should just give up and doom our children, grandchildren and the world to a terrible future.

There is no valid economic or moral argument to support the Keystone pipeline, please join me in telling President Obama (here) and your Senators to stop the Keystone pipeline.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal