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Home Front: Politix
The Fact-free Opposition to Keystone XL
2014-02-06
[AMERICAN] Contrary to opponents of Keystone XL, the pipeline would have virtually no effect on global warming, and the world is not experiencing more frequent and extreme climate-related events.

Now that the State Department has reported the obvious -- that the Keystone XL pipeline would have virtually no effect on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or on global temperatures -- the opponents of the project are bringing the heat. But in the realm of energy and environmental policy, Pavlov's dogs are many, loyal, and deeply religious, and unlike Sherlock Holmes's four-legged friend in Silver Blaze, they decidedly are not silent.

One such immediate reaction was offered by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who informs us modestly that "the future survival and wellbeing of humanity" is at stake. His specific arguments in summary are as follows:

  • "The world is on a trajectory to raise the mean global temperature by at least 3 degrees C by the end of the century."

  • "The world is experiencing a rapidly rising frequency of extreme climate-related events such as heat waves."

  • "The Keystone pipeline is crucial to the global carbon budget," that is, an effort to limit the use of fossil fuels to an amount that would yield a global temperature increase of no more than 2 degrees C.
    • Posted by:Fred

    #4  Which is safer for the environment:
    1. A pipeline that goes through a safe country and can be built according to crazy strict environmentalists guidelines.

    2. Shipping crude by boat in which it has to risk the vast ocean, drunk captains, and occasional pirates while requiring oil to cross that distance and a military (and all the oil they use for war and war prep) to safeugard a lot of whackos in the countries where it is drilled in order to drill it safely in the first place.

    Not really a hard choice if yo uhave any brains, except their goal is not the environment so much as removal of cheap energy and control.
    Posted by: rjschwarz   2014-02-06 15:04  

    #3  Bloomberg: Potential short-term and long-term jobs created.
    Posted by: Besoeker   2014-02-06 11:53  

    #2  Not building XL will not lower CO2 emissions, which is what the State Dept. said. Canada will extract the oil. They can pipe it to us, or they can ship it to China. The oil will get burned either way.
    Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2014-02-06 10:43  

    #1  So three degrees is catastrophic, but if we give complete control to Professor Sachs, he could limit the global increase to just two degrees. Over the next ninety years.

    That requires a certain level of trust, which I feel Dr. Sachs has not earned. Nor any other of his ilk.
    Posted by: Bobby   2014-02-06 07:37  

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