Keystone XL Pipeline Leaks
The Keystone Pipeline ruins the planet. But it has two modes: When it works as advertised, this destruction takes place slowly, over a period of decades; when it fails, the process is greatly accelerated.
The Facebook post to the left is a reference to Native Americans’ and other environmentalists’ protests, and the intense reaction by law enforcement to stop them. From Wikipedia:
In 2011, environmental and global warming activist Bill McKibben took the question of the pipeline to NASA scientist James Hansen, who told McKibben the pipeline would be “game over for the planet”.
McKibben and other activists organized opposition, which coalesced in August 2011 with over 1000 nonviolent arrests at the White House, which included environmental leaders such as Phil Radford and celebrities including Daryl Hannah.
They promised to continue to challenge President Obama to stand by his 2008 call to “be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil” as he entered the 2012 reelection campaign. A relatively broad coalition came together, including the Republican governor Dave Heineman and senators Ben Nelson and Mike Johanns from Nebraska, and some Democratic funders such as Susie Tompkins Buell.
On November 6, 2011, several thousand environmentalist supporters, some shouldering a long black inflatable replica of a pipeline, formed a human chain around the White House to convince Barack Obama to block the controversial Keystone XL project. Organizer Bill McKibben said, “this has become not only the biggest environmental flash point in many, many years, but maybe the issue in recent times in the Obama administration when he’s been most directly confronted by people in the street. In this case, people willing, hopeful, almost dying for him to be the Barack Obama of 2008.”
On October 4, 2012, actress and activist Daryl Hannah and 78-year-old Texas landowner Eleanor Fairchild were arrested for criminal trespassing and other charges after they were accused of standing in front of pipeline construction equipment on Fairchild’s farm in Winnsboro, a town about 100 miles (160 km) east of Dallas.[184] Fairchild has owned the land since 1983 and refused to sign any agreements with TransCanada. Her land was seized by eminent domain.
On October 31, 2012, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was also arrested in Texas for criminal trespass after trying to deliver food and supplies to the Keystone XL protesters.
An estimated crowd of 35,000–50,000 gathers near the Washington Monument on February 17, 2013 to protest the Keystone XL pipeline and support action on climate change.
On February 17, 2013, approximately 35,000 to 50,000 protestors attended a rally in Washington, D.C. organized by The Sierra Club, 350.org, and The Hip Hop Caucus, in what Bill McKibben described as “the biggest climate rally by far, by far, by far, in U.S. history”. The event featured Lennox Yearwood; Chief Jacqueline Thomas, immediate past chief of the Saik’uz First Nation; Van Jones; Crystal Lameman, of Beaver Lake Cree Nation; Michael Brune, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and others as invited speakers. Simultaneous ‘solidarity’ protests were also organized in several other cities across the United States, Europe, and Canada. Protesters called on President Obama to reject the planned pipeline extension when deciding the fate of the pipeline after Secretary of State John Kerry completes a review of the project.
“[B]ecause of broader market dynamics and options for crude oil transport in the North American logistics system, the upstream and downstream activities are unlikely to be substantially different whether or not the proposed Project is constructed.”
On March 2, 2014, approximately 1000–1200 protesters marched from Georgetown University to the White House to stage a protest against the Keystone Pipeline. 398 arrests were made of people tying themselves to the White House fence with zip-ties and lying on a black tarp in front of the fence. The tarp represented an oil spill, and many protesters dressed in white jumpsuits covered in black ink, symbolizing oil-covered HazMat suits, laid down upon the tarp.
Craig,
Hysterical, ill-informed radical protestors only serve to distract, alienate and weary the general public from supporting environmental initiatives.
The actions of these self indulgent exhibitionists serve no useful purpose.
The entire US economy has improved and avoided a massive recession due to the sudden growth in North American energy, mostly oil an gas, production growth.
Oil (and Gas) must be transported to be refined and turned into useful products. Transport involves three methods, Rail, Sea, Pipeline or combinations of all three.
Of these three methods the most economic and environmental is pipelines. Pipelines are hardly new and have been functioning around the world since the 1860’s .
Today, there are hundreds of millions of miles of pipelines stretching across the globe. these pipelines transport everything from water to milk, ammonia to natural gas, even beer !
Pipelines are not just the safest and most economic method of transport, they are by far the most environmental. Like all transport and technology, there are environmental negatives. nothing is perfect, faults and spillages will occur.
The absurd delusion that not building pipelines in the US will by some mysterious (symbolic) process prevent fossil fuel usage in the US is ludicrous !
That’s the real danger of these protests. The general public quickly concludes the motive of the protestors are at best woolly and misconceived at worst are disingenuous and against the interests of ordinary Americans. (Daryl Hannah didn’t walk to join her fellow protestors, nor did she ride a bike. She used products transported by pipelines).
It’s not a choice about fossil fuels, it’s a choice about the best method of transport and pipelines are easily the best method.
Our civilization has recognized the imperative to get rid of fossil fuels at the maximum pace compatible with common sense, which is one of the reasons why investing in new infrastructure for extraction and transportation is slowing down.
Re: your other point, as far as I can observe, social protest has been fantastically effective, especially over the last century, at bringing about progress like women’s suffrage, civil rights, LGBT rights. the end to Apartheid and the war is Vietnam, etc. I believe Henry Kissinger was correct when he famously said, “If it weren’t for the objection to the war on the part of the common American, we’d still be there.”
You can call all this ludicrous is that makes you feel good. But if you ask the parents who were spared losing a son in a jungle in Southeast Asia what they think about Americans’ DEMAND that the war come to an end, I doubt you’ll get much support.
Craig,
On the other hand, the ” Ban the Bomb ” demonstrators haven’t proved terribly effective have they, eh.
The causes and lessons learned from the war in Vietnam were very painful. However, are you really advocating abandoning the defense of freedom from naked aggression by totalitarian regimes because it may cost allied lives, or expenditure ?
But that’s a whole different debate, and not a subject appropriately covered with a few glib lines.
My point is, demonstrations are only effective if the cause resonates with the general public.
In the case of pipelines it doesn’t. The reason demonstrations are ineffective is the general public believe, quite rightly, while world still needs fossil fuels, those fuels should be transported by the safest, most efficient, economical and environmental method possible.
That means pipelines.
” which is one of the reasons why investing in new infrastructure for extraction and transportation is slowing down “. Again your reasoning is based on wishful thinking !
Investment in fossil fuel production remains very strong, but the enormous success of recent extraction technology has produced a world glut resulting in lower prices which in turn reduces the demand for developing new fields.