Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumIs the Keystone XL Pipeline the "Stonewall" of the Climate Movement?
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/15598-is-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-the-stonewall-of-the-climate-movementPresident Barack Obama prepares to take the stage for a speech at a pipe yard outside Cushing, Okla., March, 22, 2012.
Is the Keystone XL Pipeline the "Stonewall" of the Climate Movement?
Monday, 08 April 2013 11:15
By Bill McKibben, TomDispatch | Op-Ed
A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the Selma and Stonewall of the climate movement.
Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, were aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the environmental review the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline. And theres good reason to put pressure on. After all, its the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired experts who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipelines builder.
Still, lets put things in perspective: Stonewall took place in 1969, and as of last week the Supreme Court was still trying to decide if gay people should be allowed to marry each other. If the climate movement takes that long, well be rallying in scuba masks. (Im not kidding. The section of the Washington Mall where we rallied against the pipeline this winter already has a big construction project underway: a flood barrier to keep the rising Potomac River out of downtown DC.)
It was certainly joyful to see marriage equality being considered by our top judicial body. In some ways, however, the most depressing spectacle of the week was watching Democratic leaders decide that, in 2013, it was finally safe to proclaim gay people actual human beings. In one weekend, Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia figured out that they had evolved on the issue. And Bill Clinton, the greatest weathervane who ever lived, finally decided that the Defense of Marriage Act he had signed into law, boasted about in ads on Christian radio, and urged candidate John Kerry to defend as constitutional in 2004, was, you know, wrong. He, too, had evolved, once the polls made it clear that such an evolution was a safe bet.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Selma and Stonewall were about basic human rights. This is not. If we somehow convince Obama to not sign off on this stretch of pipe, the Canadians will simply take the dirty crap elsewhere.
cprise
(8,445 posts)Do you mean China? They now have a carbon tax.
Most of the rest of the globe is getting acutely concerned about global warming.
If the investment in Keystone XL is completed, then its existence will make a carbon tax seem even more politically impossible than it is now.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)And, no, I did not mean China.
cprise
(8,445 posts)and more expensive.
And like I said, with an investment that big the pipeline might as well be a Chinese Wall between the US and a carbon tax.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)No XL pipeline? They simply take it out another way -- other existing pipelines, trucks, whatever.
The price of oil will be increasing, and Canada will exploit the tar sands.
cprise
(8,445 posts)to exploit something like the tar sands... there is always someone else or some other way, so..... might as well be us at the lowest possible monetary cost.
That is the sheer idiocy that drives the race to the bottom. There is *always* someone else, they say, who will exploit the situation if we don't exploit it for them.
What a fine, upstanding approach you have to the problem of curtailing carbon emissions.
Why not make it harder and more expensive for them? Then they'll consume less of the tar sands or at least at a slower rate. It will eat into their profit margin, making the life of the project all that much shorter.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)1) I never said nor implied that we might as well help the Canadians exploit the tar sands at the lowest price. My argument in that context was simply the you were incorrect in your assumption that killing XL will shut down the tar sands because of the expense. Won't happen. Period.
2) I am fully in support of replacing fossil fuels as quickly as possible. However, I never cease to be frustrated by the unwillingness of the American leftwing of the environmental movement to thwart so many attempts to reduce carbon emissions.
3) You want to eat into their profits? Sure. I don't care. I'm pleased that you are recognizing that stopping the completion of XL (much of it is complete) will not bring their profits to zero.
As long as we honestly recognize that opposing Keystone XL is nothing more than a gesture (and, in all probability, an empty gesture), then we're all on the same page.
cprise
(8,445 posts)1) I made no such assumption.
2) That is gibberish; try proofreading before posting.
3) Clearly you are trying to cop out here.
As long as we honestly recognize that opposing Keystone XL is nothing more than a gesture (and, in all probability, an empty gesture), then we're all on the same page.
By whose metrics or judgement? If its yours, then I'd very much like to invite you to hash this issue out with the regulars in the Environment & Energy forum.
I notice how the most extreme users of hyperbole will abandon their argument when a hot spotlight is shone upon their failed tactic. "What? Why, I never said such a thing???!!!"
2) Gibberish? Learn how to read.
You get the last word.
cprise
(8,445 posts)...that shutting down KXL would completely stop tar sands exploitation. It is what you needed to see in order to be contrarian and dump a load of attitude on someone. But I said nothing to that effect.
And here are your own words for your perusal:
I never cease to be frustrated by the unwillingness of the American leftwing of the environmental movement to thwart so many attempts to reduce carbon emissions.
Why is it frustrating, again? Huh? You're accusing people of wanting to reduce emissions... Do you realize that?
Perhaps its better taken as a Freudian slip: You get frustrated when people want to reduce carbon emissions.
You entered into this thread with acrimonious finger-pointing (indeed, with hyperbole) -- a pretty entertaining example of projection and an abstruse triple-somersault of illogical statements (the kind where one lands on their face).
NickB79
(19,114 posts)IE on the books but never, ever enforced for fear of hurting the all-important economy.
The rest of the world may be acutely concerned about global warming, but they're doing fuck-all to actually make the hard choices needed to save our asses before it's too late. Just like a fat man can be acutely concerned about having a heart attack in the near future, but just can't say no to another night eating pizza and cheeseburgers because they taste oh so good.