It isn’t because I think fossil fuels are great. The idea of drilling in ANWR, for example, always seemed dumb to me: the whole point of having a wildlife refuge is not to have development.
But it seems to me that the main opposition to the pipeline is that the oil it would carry is substantially dirtier than even other oil, and that it will contribute to more global climate change.
I looked at the State Department’s EIS, and it reports (if I’m reading this correctly) that the pipeline would add about 1.5 million tons of CO2 to the 5.5 billion tons we currently emit. My first thought is that adding GHG emissions isn’t good, but that isn’t a whole lot.
So what happens if the pipeline isn’t built? Won’t the tar sands oil just be trucked into the U.S. like it is today? Seems like it to me. Will Canada stop or slow down the extraction of this oil? Doesn’t seem plausible. Are pipelines more dangerous than I give them credit for? Our country apparently has 1.3 million miles of pipelines, so this Keystone business would be adding about 1.5% to the existing length of pipelines in the country.
I just don’t get it. All the arguments against the Keystone XL that I have seen appear to be ridiculously bad. What are the best reasons from the environmental community on why this is a terrible thing?
I’m not very well-versed in this, but I do think you’re missing a couple of things.
First, while you note that the environmental impacts are marginal, they are to be weighed against similarly marginal economic benefits. The pipeline will create a small number of temporary jobs, and will be more efficient and therefore more profitable for the companies that benefit from extracting and refining this oil. So the fact that it may marginally increase ghg output (since it makes transport and refining cheaper, the expectation is that more will be sold and used more quickly, I think), and increase spill risks, may be enough to outweigh the marginal benefits.
Second, the particular location of these pipes is of some concern. As it turns out, pipelines leak with some frequency. Part of the proposal involves pipelines over important aquifers and sensitive wetlands, some in seismically active regions. Not all 1.5% increases in amount of pipelines are created equal, in other words.
Well, here are the top 10 reasons to oppose it on Huff:
So, it’s a hodgepodge of reasons to oppose it ranging from the rational to the ridiculous. Basically, it makes as much sense as opposition to nuclear and has a similar affect. It’s all really just pissing in the wind, though, in the end. It will neither save the economy or make us energy independent nor will it destroy the planet or the environment single by itself. As you say, with or without the pipeline that oil is going to be exploited, sold, refined and used one way or the other.
Wait, what on that list is so ridiculous? What about “game over” needs explaining?
I can’t understand the support; frankly, it looks like some demented attempt to make sure the human race dies in a variety of extremely unpleasant ways.
Keep the oil in the soil, and keep the coal in the hole(s).
My nephew’s generation will either thank us or curse us. It’s an obvious choice. There was a banner at one of the big anti-KXL rallies that read: “We Will Dismantle the Pipeline.” We must.
This. In addition, I turn it around on its head and say “I don’t understand the gung ho proponents of this.” I personally would be okay with it if everyone whose land it would cross would agree to sell the rights to do so on the open market. After all, the main devastation would be to their own land (if also a chance of greater contamination.)
Now, the proponents of the big hand of economic interference in this case are also the ones who say they want to lower taxes so that people can keep more of what’s theirs. And for the people involved, this is more than the theoretical taking of possessions in the form of taxes, it’s the actual taking of the rights to use property via eminent domain, which is a much better argument from first principles than any “taxes are theft” argument.
I rarely play the hypocrite card, but this is a huge example of it. The rights and concerns of people who don’t want to sell the use of their land should be taken into account, especially when weighed against the marginal benefits to America of this project.
Approving this eminent domain would be like a city approving an interstate running through your city, but with no exits in the city. ETA: and to complete the analogy, it would provide jobs to around 10 more cops to police moving violations.
I think the alternative is for Canada to build its own pipeline to either coast. The problem with that is, the ports are farther away (not to mention in much colder weather) from the oil’s eventual destinations.
[QUOTE=Lemmytheseal2]
Wait, what on that list is so ridiculous? What about “game over” needs explaining?
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If I have to explain why many of them are ridiculous, especially considering your response here, then I probably can’t, because reality and such thinking rarely are compatible. To take a shot at it, let me ask you a question…let’s say this pipeline is stopped. How will that change, well, anything? What do you suppose the positive outcome for the environment would be?
Good grief.
And if we did that, today, what do you suppose the outlook on the human race would be? Would more or less people die if we left all the oil and coal in the ground and decided not to use it anymore (leaving aside whether this is at all a realistic outcome)? What are your alternatives, ready to roll out today to make this happen?
As an aside, and just out of curiosity, do you also oppose nuclear energy?
I don’t think your nephew’s generation would thank you if you managed to get folks to stop using oil or coal (or presumably any other fossil fuel) today without something to take it’s place…something that doesn’t exist today, or does and is blocked by the same mentality of those opposing this stupid pipeline.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. The opposition to nuclear is principally woo and failure to understand cost-benefit tradeoffs. The Keystone opposition is more well-grounded in concerns about oil spills and climate change.
Basic economics predicts that if Keystone XL makes it cheaper to use this oil, then more of it will be used with Keystone than without (or at least faster, which is still relevant given the timeline of cheaper renewables coming online).
I certainly wouldn’t call myself a proponent, but I start from the position that a pipeline or more or less another type of national infrastructure. Sure, it may not be owned by a government, but neither are train tracks. So as a general proposition, if someone wants to build a piece of infrastructure for some type of economic purpose – whether it is an office building or an airport – my first thought it, why not?
The issue is, in this case, the why nots I have heard have generally been of the quality that XT linked to. For example, “Which Side Are You On?” does nothing for me. If the oil companies are right about something, I’ll be on their side. If the social justice people are right about something, I’ll be on their side. I don’t choose who is right based on who is saying it. And I could care less what Robert Redford (or Curt Shilling for that matter) have to say about public policy.
First, I don’t give a crap about any charges of hypocrisy on this issue. I’m a tax-and-spend liberal, so I couldn’t care less if Joe Smith usually votes to cut taxes but he supports the pipeline. It is utterly irrelevant what he thinks about other issues as to whether or not he’s right on this one.
But on the broader topic again: isn’t the idea that the pipeline would bring the oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast, where it would be turned into various products for sale in the US and abroad? If the pipeline isn’t built, where would the refining happen?
There’s a lot of things that people pass off as common sense that aren’t. Can you show some cites that demonstrate that price of gas is a determining factor in the number of miles driven?
The reason I ask is that I heard a snippet of a story on NPR recently which claimed that the number of miles driven is far better explained by the amount of growth in an economy. As in, gas can be as cheap as possible but if unemployment is high and production is down, there aren’t a lot of goods to ship around and people aren’t taking long vacation drives in their car. Personally, I’ve never felt the need to drive more when gas prices are down.
I don’t think they’re talking about consumer gas prices. I think they’re talking about the global oil market, and when and how much the dirty Canadian oil will get used as compared to other sources. If you make dirty Canadian oil cheaper, there is more incentive to produce and sell it at the global market price. Moreover, the global price might decline a little as a result, which would also encourage more usage of oil as against natural gas or nuclear or solar or whatever. So you end up using more of the dirtier oil as compared to cleaner oil from sources like the Gulf of Mexico.
And it isn’t relying on some simplistic aphorism about supply and demand. AFAIK, most supporters and opponents agree that it will increase Canadian oil sands production.
I have the humility to respect the judgment of scientists on matters like this. In this case, the phrase “Game Over” is James Hansen’s, and it’s the assessment of those who have spent decades empirically studying the effects of burning fossil fuels. By the way, even if there was only a 25% chance that they were right, do you want to take the risk, because if in fact they are right, and we do nothing… Words fail me.
The odds of them being correct are much higher than that, unfortunately.
Stopping this pipeline is only part of the problem, unfortunately. It’s also up to Canadian activists and their allies to stop other measures from sucking this stuff out of the ground, so it can be burned somewhere. This is part of a beyond-urgent campaign to gradually but quickly move away from fossil fuels, which is happening as technologies become cheaper. This could happen much more quickly if we could just devote to this a fraction of the money and effort that gets plowed into the vice that is fossil fuel addiction.
As for nuclear energy, it’s true that much opposition can accurately be called woo, and it might be necessary as a way to bridge the gap. With that said, there are far better, safer, cleaner alternatives (i.e. pretty much all the renewables) to move towards. Nukes are not an end goal!
In the meantime, drive less, eat less meat, live closer to one another, have fewer children, “eat local”, and so on.
Look, I fully support moving off of fossil fuels. But it is not realistic in the slightest to believe that transportation system can move off of fossil fuels as quickly as you would seem to like. I support higher mileage standards and even increasing taxes on fuel. But whether a pipeline is built seems to have no relation to our ability to move off of fossil fuels.
For example, let’s say our country quite simply ceased using any other source of oil tomorrow except for that produced in Canada. As in, no oil exploration in the US. No purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia at all. If we eliminated 95% of our oil consumption, except for this one source, the pipeline still seems like a reasonable thing to do in order to to move a commodity around.
On the other hand, let’s say the US simply banned the use of this fuel. Well, there’s bound to be buyers of it somewhere, so it seems to me it still has to be moved around somehow.
So once again, I ask you: please specifically explain to me how not building the pipeline would bring you closer to your goal of eliminating fossil fuels (or this particular fuel).
I’m certainly not an expert on these issues – like I said, I just heard a snippet on NPR about this issue recently. But do you have a cite for what you’re saying here, or are we only going to talk about your claim in terms of “but it’s just common sense”?
I didn’t realize you wanted to debate the beliefs of the opposition. I thought your goal was to understand them, which is what I was explaining to you. Again, what you heard on NPR isn’t relevant to their belief about oil production.
[Here’s](file:///Users/rtackhooper/Downloads/NearZero_KXL.pdf) a survey of experts (listed in Table 1), half supporters and half opponents, 70% of whom say Keystone XL will increase oil sands production.
[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. The opposition to nuclear is principally woo and failure to understand cost-benefit tradeoffs. The Keystone opposition is more well-grounded in concerns about oil spills and climate change.
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If you looked over the list I linked too then you will see that, as I said, some of them are valid and some are ridiculous. Same goes for the opposition to nuclear. Not ALL of the anti-nuke arguments are woo and ignorance. Same here
Right, but that’s not a real argument, since whether the pipeline is there is moot to the amount of oil that will be used either in the US or on the global market. The rapidity of oil transported to the US via a pipeline is meaningless, since it’s the refining capacity that really matters. The only thing this would save would be some of the transport costs, since once the pipeline is in place it would be cheaper to ship than via conventional means. But that the oil WILL be shipped has zero to do with the pipeline, and more to do with the economics of oil production and distribution.
