The Keystone(XL) Cops
Posted: 9 December 2011 Filed under: Energy, Environment, Observations, Society | Tags: Energy Policies, Environmental issues, Oil Industry, Postaday2011 2 Comments »If you are an old fart like me you will remember the humor that was the Keystone Cops……and today we have another Keystone humor if it were not so sad!
A good friend of mine, a person who truly believes that drilling will break our dependency on oil, ask me why I had not written much about the environment lately…..and I had no good answer other than the silliness of politics is all consuming…..this is a person who in the past has called me an eco-commie….so to make him happy I will now write about the Keystone XL Pipeline……
A little background…..this pipeline will run through the middle of America from Canada’s oil fields to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas…..there are those that protest the pipeline and those that see it as a good thing (especially the oil industry)……of course the con side of the issue is that it would be a polluting problem waiting to happen…then there are those that think this is a good idea because it will create thousands of jobs, relieve our oil dependency are the two big pro side arguments…..
But those jobs created will be temp jobs…..how will it end our dependency on foreign oil….it will be pumped out of Canada. The last time I checked Canada was not part of the US (you can thank a disastrous attempt in 1812 to invade Canada)…it is still NOT American oil! And then the one thing that few have mentioned is….national security. A continuous pipeline that runs for that many miles is a perfect target for a terrorist attack…..any spill will effect a large segment of the water table and water is not something we need to put in jeopardy (kinda like the absurd idea of frakking)……
And then there is the most transparent use of the fear card….T. Boone Pickins was interviewed on the pipeline and being an oil man he is all for it….but his argument is if it is not built all that oil will go to China….would that be one of his companies that sells it to China?
Obama has step forward to oppose tying the pipeline to tax cuts extension…but that is a game. He and his cronies have postponed the decision on the pipeline to after the 2012 election….go figure! Obama does not want this to be an issue that would alienate the environmentalist until after the election…….and you could almost wager that it will be a done deal in some form after he is re-elected……so his opposition is half-hearted at best.
To me, the only people that would actually benefit from this pipeline is the oil industry. PERIOD! It is a bad idea on so many levels.
Well said. But you left out the part about the Carbon emissions that collecting and refining tar sand oil puts in the atmosphere, thus perhaps the oil industry benefits in the short term, but all of us (generations down the road) lose big time–not so funny.
Morning B…..thanx for reminding me……I had forgotten about that….this pipeline is a done deal in one form or another after the 2012 elections….the jobs thingy will sell it to so called Dems…..