"You'll never get near my aquifer!"

Many have outlined reasons why Keystone XL pipeline is not a smart project for the United States. Opening the pipeline likely will lead to increased gasoline prices for many Americans. The pipeline, carrying the rather dangerous and difficult to clean up "Dilbit" oil, risks having leaks (despite industry promises that, well, such leaks would never, never, never happen ... cross their fingers and laugh their way to the bank). There is that pesky little issue of how Tar Sands Oil will exacerbate climate chaos (which, of course, has nothing to do with extreme weather events, the drought devastating America's 2012 crop yields, and ...). In summary, when it comes to Keystone XL, there are plenty of reasons "Why not!"

And, these reasons add up to a basic conclusion to say to the pipeline promoters:

You'll never get near my aquifer.

To understand that sentence's full context, watch this video. You'll be glad you did.

Produced by the Post Carbon Institute, "Breakup" comes from Heather Libby who explained this video here.

Like many in the environmental movement, I was thrilled when President Obama denied the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. I really thought it was the end of the Keystone XL. Silly me.

Within weeks, Republicans were looking for new ways to resubmit the Keystone XL plan. Mitt Romney has said he’ll make approving the Keystone XL a priority for his first day in office if he wins.

Seeing all of this, I was frustrated and felt disenfranchised. So I did what I always do in that situation: write comedy.

All I could think of was how much pipeline companies like Transcanada, Enbridge, Shell and Kinder Morgan reminded me of guys who simply won’t take no for an answer. They're going to keep coming back no matter what we tell them, unless we cut them off for good - and remove their subsidies.

And, when it comes to this, Heather has this concluding thought:

Don’t you think it’s time we end this dirty relationship?

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excellent post! for the life of me...

poligirl's picture

i cannot understand (well maybe i can, sadly) how this project is even still alive - with a supposedly 'left' WH and Senate. If there ever was a case to point out that good accomplishment regardless of who is in charge is a farce, this is it...

how is this not dead yet? Mr. Obama? Can you hear me? Do you care?

(and before you hit publish on your post, in the drop down menu where the default is set to "Filtered HTML" switch it to "Full HTML" if you have vids...) :D

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Thanks ...

A Siegel's picture

Full vs Filtered ... check!

The reason this is "still alive" is that there are valid reasons to support it -- and many D politicians that support it for those valid reasons. Montana will earn more money for its extracted oil with Keystone XL in place then you have the D Governor strongly supportive of it. If one earns income via the price paid for exploited oil, then Keystone XL will raise the price for the oil from the Bakken oil fields. This is, for that crowd, "money today vs risks for tomorrow". Guess what wins almost all the time.

And, of course, there are the non-legitimate reasons -- such as the fundamental misreporting as to jobs implications. Almost everyone "knows" that Keystone XL will create jobs ... except it will, on total, be a job killer.

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Energy should serve the public interest;

aigeanta's picture

not the other way around. It's amazing to me that we're even having such national conversations, about whether or not to despoil our country for the sake of a few dirty years of power. These resources are limited and tricky to mine. Their removal causes an ugly mess that pollutes the surrounding air, water, and soil for countless years. Their transport increases the deadly risk of spill or explosion, and their consumption primarily causes the destruction of our climate and further decimation of our environment. The single positive contribution dirty energy can make is enormous mountains of profit into the vast pocketbooks of the wealthy elite who have no interest in serving the public; only themselves.

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perfect example

sartoris's picture

This is a perfect example of the power of money. The amount of energy this would generate compared to the amount of money required makes it a losing proposition by nearly any metric. However, the amount of profits for the few key players is enormous. As the spill in Michigan demonstrated they cannot clean up this type of oil. We subsidize the fossil fuel industry enormously but the right makes the guaranteed loans received by Solyndra to be the crime of the century. The country should not even be engaging in this debate. Why we do not even have offshore wind power yet is more of a crime than anything that happened with Solyndra. This administration is moving forward with Arctic drilling and I'm nearly certain will approve the Keystone project in 2013. The amount of time and money wasted on the fossil fuel industry is staggering. Climate change demands that we move away from this energy source instead of feeding it more money and more valuable time.

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