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| Ed Shultz says Frack it! |
A man of the Middle Class and Poor, a man for the Middle Class and Poor, and a very good one at that; and he understands economics from that class perspective, which is the better perspective these days, at least in those who think that citizens call the economic shots.
But his environmental understanding comes from another planet, a planet whose life will never be snuffed out by Oil-Qaeda, a planet that is not inhabited by endangered species and endangered civilization, a planet not called "Earth."
He argued in favor of the "Keystone Oil Pipeline" on his show today, which is not unusual.
What was unusual was that he argued as if the debate about our dying civilization is about how we ship the poison that is killing our civilization.
It is as if he infers that "we have to kill ourselves by pipeline", as unrighteously indignant Oil-Qaeda encourages, and "not by rail car" says Ed!
Really Ed? What is important about the damaged Global Climate System is how we ship those poisonous products that have damaged it, are damaging it, and to quote you Ed, "will continue to" damage it?
No, Ed, the reality for life is this: we must stop killing ourselves by all means, whether by pipeline, by rail, by air, or by media nonsense!
The way to do that is to stop putting what is poisoning our sustenance of life into pipelines, rail cars, or anything else.
We must leave it in the ground.
To signal that we get it, to signal that we grasp that morbid reality, we will not sanction the Keystone Pipeline as you do. (UPDATE: last night on The Ed Show, Mr. Shultz reflected on all the evidence and therefore urged President Obama to not approve the pipeline because of the grave danger to the Ogallala Aquifer).
Because, such a policy is The Red Green Show level of a lack of understanding of what the problem is:
Even 48" pipes can and do break. Big spill in NC now happening: Link
ReplyDelete"The Keystone pipeline is crucial to the global carbon budget. If the world deploys massive unconventional oil sources like Canada's oil sands we will exceed the carbon budget, unless there is a simultaneous strategy to offset that excess carbon some other way. But to do so would be using Canada's expensive, dirty, and CO2-intensive oil when cheaper, (relatively) cleaner, and lower-CO2 oil is available. Under any circumstances, to evaluate the Keystone Project properly, we need to judge it against the global carbon budget.
ReplyDeleteHerein lies the tragic, indeed fatal, flaw of the State Department review. The State Department Environmental Impact Statement doesn't even ask the right question: How do the unconventional Canadian oil sands fit or not fit within the overall carbon budget? Instead, the State Department simply assumes, without any irony or evident self-awareness, that the oil sands will be developed and used one way or another. For the State Department, the main issue therefore seems to be whether the oil will be shipped by pipeline or by rail. The State Department doesn't even raise the possibility that the pipeline should be stopped in order to keep a lid on the total amount of unconventional fossil fuels burned around the world.
The core assumption of the report is that the US Government has no role to play, either alone or in conjunction with Canada and other countries, to stay within an overall global carbon budget." - Jeffrey Sachs, "The Pipeline To Disaster"