Tag Archives: Keystone XL

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Has Keystone XL Fight Rebooted the Environmental Movement?

The Keystone XL pipeline is a very real threat to the environment. If burned, the Canadian tar sand oil the pipeline is meant to carry will pump tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, increasing the devastation of climate change. Pipeline leaks of dilbit (diluted bitumen) could contaminate the vast and vital Ogallala aquifer. (Read the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning series on a dilbit leak in Michigan to get a sense of what’s at stake.)

Dilbit pipeline leak in Arkansas forces evacuation, March 2013 (Photo credit: EPA)

The fight against Keystone XL also has a symbolic component, Bryan Farrell argues over at Slate.

The greatest environmental threat of our era, global climate change, has lacked the kind of focus and specificity that allows organizers to, well, organize. The problems are so varied. Rising ocean levels, forest fires, flooding, the death of coral reefs from acidification. Paradoxically, climate change is hard to fight in part because the threat is so large and multifaceted. Overwhelmed, many people simply throw up their hands and give up.

That, says Farrell (editor at the excellent site Waging Nonviolence), is where the movement against the Keystone XL comes in.

[The anti-Keystone movement] was never about just a pipeline. [Bill] McKibben and a handful of others had another, less talked about goal—to remake the environmental movement into something far more active, creative, and formidable for years to come. The gap that once existed between mainstream environmental groups and grass-roots activists has now largely dissolved, resulting in widespread action that has not been seen in the United States for decades—perhaps even since the first Earth Day in April 1970.On that day, mainstream environmental groups with roots going back to the conservation movement of the early 20th century united with grass-roots activists for a day of teach-ins, influenced by the burgeoning student anti-war movement. Amid the thousands of demonstrations that took place across the nation, there was at least one major act of civil disobedience, in which 15 people were arrested for holding a mock funeral inside Boston’s Logan Airport. Interestingly enough, it was a sort of proto-climate protest against a supersonic plane and its accompanying release of water vapor—a major greenhouse gas.

via Bill McKibben’s fight against Keystone XL: The movement against the pipeline was always an attempt to bridge the divide between mainstream environmental groups and grass-roots activists. - Slate Magazine.

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U.S. Representative: Keystone XL “poses major threats at every turn”

United States Representative Steve Cohen (D - TN) spoke against the Keystone XL pipeline, on the House floor yesterday.

“When you brush aside the studies by TransCanada and other oil companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies,” said Rep. Cohen, “every analysis clearly demonstrates the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats at every turn – in its extraction, its transportation, its refining, and its consumption – threats to our earth.”

Here’s the video of Cohen’s brief remarks.

And here’s the text:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share my grave concerns about the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, the decision and existence of which is awaiting a decision by the Administration.

Last week, 84 of my colleagues (82 Republicans and 2 Democrats) introduced H.R. 3, a bill that would approve the construction and maintenance of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The world’s foremost climatologist, Dr. James Hansen—and one of the first scientists to warn of the dangers of burning carbon fuel and a partial recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize—has likened the building and use of the Keystone pipeline to the “lighting of a carbon bomb.” Game over.

DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline.

DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline.

When you brush aside the studies by TransCanada and other oil companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies, every analysis clearly demonstrates the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats at every turn – in its extraction, its transportation, its refining, and its consumption – threats to our earth.

The truth of the matter is, the U.S. isn’t even going to be using those fossil fuels transported by the pipeline—they’re going straight to China.

In fact, the only proposed feasible method of getting those Canadian tar sands to China or any other country is by building the Keystone XL pipeline, to feed into the port in Houston, Texas.

I urge my colleagues to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, avoid lighting that carbon bomb in our country. Oppose H.R. 3 and return our focus to initiatives that center on true energy independence through renewable resources and greener production.”

Cohen is one of 24 Representatives who comprise the Safe Climate Caucus — a group organized last month and headed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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Want to Fight Climate Change? You’re an Enemy of the People

What do you call someone who understands that climate change is a threat — perhaps the gravest threat — to our economy, to the environment, to future generations?

If you’re The Washington Post, apparently, you call them a “radical.”

Sunday’s rally for action on climate change brought 35,000 people to Washington, D.C., making it the largest such gathering in U.S. history.

That was the strange and damning headline above an excellent profile by Juliet Eilperin of billionaire Thomas Steyer in Monday’s WaPo:

“Billionaire has unique role in official Washington: climate change radical.”

Never mind that Steyer has been one of the most successful investment managers in the United States. (Farallon Capital Management, the private equity firm he founded in 1986, manages a $20 billion portfolio.)

Never mind that his investments have created thousands of jobs for Americans.

Never mind that he has partnered with such conservative stalwarts such as George Schultz, former Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan.

Thomas Steyer

And never mind that the “radical” position Steyer takes is supported by virtually all climatologists, backed-up by decades of scientific data and analysis.

All this means nothing.

Steyer’s message may be true, but the fossil fuel industry and the politicians it funds don’t like it. So, he’s a radical.

(Interestingly, the only time Eilperin uses the word in her piece is when she writes that “Steyer doesn’t appear radical.”)

On Sunday, Eilperin noted, Steyer spoke briefly at the largest climate rally in U.S. history, where 35,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C.

“For the last 30 years I’ve been a professional investor,” Steyer told the crowd, “and I’ve been looking at billion-dollar investments for decades and I’m here to tell you one thing: The Keystone pipeline is not a good investment.”

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry “dilbit” - a particularly noxious form of oil - from Canada to refineries in Texas, has become a symbol of our failed energy practices and a rallying point for those advocating change. (You can read more about the dangers of dilbit here.)

The use of the word “radical” to describe Steyer comes soon after his name was floated as a replacement for out-going Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu. The timing may be coincidental, but it plays into the hands of those who support the status quo. Chu, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, wasn’t blind to the threat of climate change. But he has not been a sufficiently strong advocate for a sustainable energy policy, either.

It’s the norm for today’s far-right version of the Republican Party to vilify anyone who opposes the will of the fossil fuel industry. If you support solar power, you’re a socialist. (You see benefits in distributed generation solar? That’s an interesting proposition, Comrade.)

There’s nothing new in any of this, of course. The entire story could have been lifted from a play written by Henrik Ibsen in 1882 and titled, fittingly, An Enemy of the People.

Set in a small Norwegian town, the story follows the travails of the local physician who discovers that the village spa has been contaminated by industrial waste. The good Dr. Stockmann imagines that he’ll be hailed as a hero for finding the problem.

But the bath complex anchors the town’s economy. The doctor’s brother Peter, the town mayor, tries to convince Stockmann to cover up the problem. Conduct further studies, the mayor urges, and declare that the water is fine.

“The source is poisoned, man!” counters the outraged doctor. “Are you mad?”

To which the mayor responds, “The man who can throw out such offensive insinuations about his native town must be an enemy to our community.”

Things go downhill quickly for Dr. Stockmann.

The editor of the town newspaper (a leftist!) at first relishes the opportunity to expose corruption among the village leaders. But a visit from the mayor persuades the editor that the cost of fixing the baths would come out of taxpayers’ pockets, leaving them little money for extravagances. Luxuries like, for instance, newspapers. The story is axed.

The “enemy of the people” has his practice ruined, his home destroyed, and his reputation in tatters.

The doctor should have listened to his wife.

After Stockmann’s first conversation with his brother, the doctor tells his wife not to worry. After all, he explains, “I have right on my side.”

“Oh, yes, right — right,” she says, knowingly, and asks, “What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?”

In Ibsen’s imagined village, the majority of citizens don’t want to know the truth about the poisoned waters. The situation is different in the United States today. Poll after poll show that the majority of Americans want elected officials to take strong action on climate change. And yet, with neither right not democratic might on their side, our elected officials still refuse to take the kind of action that is commensurate with the challenges we face.

That’s why organizers of Sunday’s event in Washington predict that the rally — while historic — is only the beginning of a movement that is at least as much about democracy and long-term economic prosperity as it is about environmental stewardship.

I know: what radical ideas!