He’ll only approve the pipeline if it won’t add to “carbon pollution.”
It’s a stupid question. Of course it won’t “add to carbon pollution.” Only in a fanciful, unicorn-fart world in which the oil that will be flowing through the pipeline will be left in the ground if it isn’t built is this an issue. We know that the Canadians are already cutting deals to sell the oil to China. In that case, moving it there in ships will generate even more carbon than moving it through a pipeline (not to mention increasing the chances of oil spills on the Pacific coast). So if you’re really worried about carbon, and you’re smart, you should be urging the construction of the pipeline. But we know that for opponents of the pipeline (possibly including the president) at least one, and possibly both of those conditions don’t apply.
If environmentalists were serious about ending carbon-based energy use, they’d be clamoring for more nuclear power plants to be built.
But, it isn’t about energy or CO2 or pollution, environmentalists are against people.
For anyone who missed the stupid: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/25/full-transcript-of-obamas-remarks-on-climate-change/
So.. apparently natural gas is “clean energy” now. Well shit Obama, why didn’t you say so before? Boys, fire up the fracker! The One has our back!
Just for my understanding, this is about the pipeline that crosses into Canada, and doesn’t stop connecting North Dakota et. al. to the Gulf Coast refineries?
A post at Via Meadia.
I don’t know. Maybe this is protectionism for Mid-West oil against Canadian competition? Stupid, yah, but what’s too stupid for this administration?
So if you’re really worried about carbon, and you’re smart, you should be urging the construction of the pipeline
Why would anyone worried about carbon want to make burning tar sands oil more economically competitive?
Um, because if Obama stops Americans buying oil sands oil, we’ll ship it to China, where it will be burned far less cleanly and efficiently?
Only if you live in a world where same amount of oil will be shipped, no matter what it costs. In this world demand for tar sands oil, like demand for most things, is price-sensitive. Making it cheaper to ship tar sands oil will speed up consumption. No one who cares about carbon would want to do that.
Shipping it to China will mean burning fuel to get it there, while you burn fuel to bring oil from the Middle East to replace Canadian oil.
To anyone but a fanatic, that is clearly insane.
It’s also going to piss off your ally to the North. Obama was supposed to be the ‘great healer’ who would make the world love America again after Bush. Instead, he’s doing his best to alienate every ally America ever had.
Hmm, maybe that’s the idea.
Shipping it to China will mean burning fuel to get it there
Again, you are assuming that price has no effect on consumption.
As a thought experiment, imagine if tomorrow someone invented a way to instantly transport oil anywhere, at zero cost. Would global oil consumption (and oil-related carbon emissions) go up, or down?
Jim, the Canadians have *already* said that if we don’t build KXL, they’ll sell the oil to China–or, presumably, anyone else willing to buy it. Therefore your price-sensitivity comments–while not true in isolation–are irrelevant in the case of the Canadian tar sands. That oil’s going going to get pumped somewhere.
Obama remains focused like a laser on jobs.
Destroying them.