The greens lobbying President Obama to block the pipeline are asking him to forgo thousands of jobs (in an election year in which jobs will could well be the major issue!) and billions of dollars in economic advantages — not to save the planet or reduce the carbon in the atmosphere, but to confer an economic and political advantage on China. If President Obama takes the green advice, the US will get almost all of the disadvantages that come from using the oil ourselves, and lose out many of the benefits.
There’s another factor that has to be weighed. Getting secure oil sources for the United States isn’t just a matter of convenience; reducing US exposure to foreign blackmail, and reducing our need to consider military interventions and other actions to protect our energy supply helps make war less likely — and allows us, all things being equal, to get along with somewhat smaller armed forces than would otherwise be required.
More, forcing China to look to less stable places than Canada for its oil transfers some of the costs of global energy security to the Chinese, and also helps tie them into the development of a rule driven global system. If the US oil supply comes largely from friendly neighbors, while China (and other US competitors) must rely on unstable, far flung sources, we are going to have more flexibility in our foreign policy and China will have so many fish to fry and cats to herd that it will be less likely to think about mounting a global challenge to the US.
Don’t expect the enviroloons to think rationally about this. We should prefer ethical oil over conflict oil. Of course, in their unrealistic fantasies, we would use no oil at all, and just power everything with windmills (ignoring the bird kill) and unicorn flatulence.
[Update a while later]
Speaking of green madness (and now anger) it looks like climate models will have to be revised. Damn those extraterrestrial causes! Can’t you just leave us green Ptolemaians alone?
Here’s another bit of madness.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3nb439e
DOJ is jailing people for importing 100 year old pianos & 80 year old guitars.
Unicorn flatulence would only be permissible if the unicorns aren’t Marines deployed in Afghanistan.
To listen to the environmentalists as a whole:
1. We can’t develop our own oil resources because they’re polluting. While they’d like us to all give up on using oil, they’ll settle in the meantime for us importing oil from countries that don’t give a damn about the environment. Result: net pollution increase.
2. We can’t use coal to generate electricity because of greenhouse gases. Coal only provides somewhere around 50% of our electricity.
3. We can’t develop windmill farms because they’re noisy, ugly, and kill birds.
4. We can’t put solar panels in the desert because they might hard some tortises.
5. We can’t do nuclear because RADIATION WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
When you listen to the different environmentalist groups, we can’t do anything. We’re supposed to sit in the dark until we die.
If they really lived their lives according to their stated beliefs, they’d get rid of their cars and move to a little plot of land to grow all their own food. They couldn’t use tractors and PETA would frown on them using animals to plow their fields, so they’d have to till the soil with their hands. They couldn’t use pesticides so a high percentage of whatever they try to grow will be eaten by bugs.
What is funny is that many of those musicians probably advocated for those treaties and regulations. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
First, they came for the concert pianists, but I was a cool rocker dude, not one of those up-tight orchestra nerds.
Then they came for the guitar makers, but I was, like, too wasted, man, and I didn’t hear about it.
Now they’re coming for me! Quick! Hide the stash! I mean, hide the AXE!
Careful with that Axe Eugene!