Supplied - shannonpatrick17The Keystone XL Pipeline has been delayed once again, and environmentalists are happy. Politicians are arguing (as always), but this everlasting delay of the inevitable has many consequences.
The most immediate drawback of delaying the pipeline is the direct effect on the environment. Activists range across a spectrum regarding KXL, but the ones that have been getting the most press are the ones against the pipeline. Of course, they raise a lot of good points, such as the habitat destruction required to build the pipeline, but this is the lesser of two evils.
When mishaps happen with the current system of transporting oil, they are extreme. A Global News report found that the average volume of oil spilled by rail is roughly five times higher than that spilled by pipeline. Protesters don’t seem to take this into account. Spills contaminate soils and groundwater, and can take years (and thousands of dollars) to clean up. In comparison, the tree removal required to construct a pipeline is minor. Delaying the pipeline keeps the window for spills by tankers and railcars wide open.
That being said, the whole pipeline-or-rail debate steers around the real problem: climate change. If the debate is only burning oil versus burning oil, the conclusion is obviously going to be to burn oil. Which is where we are right now. So while debate rages on about how we’re going to transport all of these fossil fuels, the environment pays the price. And it will continue to do so after the KXL pipeline is finally built. Sending oil down south via pipeline isn’t going to end oil spills forever. It’s not going to repair the holes in the ozone layer. It’s not going to cleanse the tailings ponds of Fort McMurray. Sure there won’t be as many spills, which is nice, but not nice enough to make a long-term difference.
But the whole point of the State Department’s ongoing review is to determine the pipeline’s effect on climate change. If climate change is so important, the government should use the money spent on these investigations and use it to develop clean energy. The veto was enacted because the current environmental review isn’t done yet, but this one follows multiple reviews already conducted by the State Department. Alternate sources have a long way to go before they become practical to use, but hell, there’s a lot of cash right now to get them there. So far, no report has come to the conclusion that the KXL pipeline shouldn’t be built. This redundancy is taking the environmental movement nowhere.
The yes/no dichotomy has taken what could have become a productive discussion about energy and turned it into a competition of ideology. Being “green” is trendy, both politicians and everyday people love to use the term to give themselves some kind of progressive status. So yet again, we have two factions throwing statistics at each other instead of thinking about solving climate change. If anything is going to be accomplished from the KXL veto, it has yet to be seen.
KXL is not strictly an ideological competition, and there actually are results from delaying the pipeline.
I think the importance of this delay is largely abstract and symbolic. Delaying it means that environmental pressure is working. Obama is (maybe ostensibly) concerned about climate change, and this same general environmental pressure from the media and the populace has also motivated Shell to enact environmental initiatives like replanting trees, even though these initiatives are not profitable. While this latter example is insignificant, this continued pressure is extremely important–it can enact, it can delay. It also transcends political ideology, involving both left and right.
If we delay the pipeline, admittedly, we have to live with oil spills. Small communities are occasionally affected, but largely these spills are in remote areas. The author doesn’t quite say how bad of a problem spills are. How bad really is contaminated soil or oil in the groundwater? How many people are affected? To sustain this macro environmental pressure, I’m willing to make some sacrifices.
Like the author, I’m implying a hierarchy of environmental problems. Above all is climate change. Cutting trees or oil spills are insignificant compared to this big problem. But the author says that rather than investigate the environmental effects, the money should be spent to develop clean energy. Obtaining a clean energy source to rely on is an immensely complicated task, involving the exploitation of some other resource. If anything, climate change will be alleviated sooner by carbon capture technology than by completely changing from the mass extraction of a globally-connected energy source. Which assumes we keep burning oil.
But delaying the pipeline is also politically symbolic. Obama shows concern while Stephen Harper, continuing a pattern of behavior that includes to his attempt to hammer Bill C-51 into law as quickly as possible without debate, wants to without consider nothing but his own agenda. For once, Harper can’t get away with something unopposed. Oddly, his decisions can only be stopped by the opinion of Americans.
Here’s the deal. Keystone will pass eventually, and its economic impact probably directly influences our university and could alleviate the responsibility of students to generate revenue. But delaying the pipeline is a victory for the environmentalists because this pressure will really be the only force driving the largely unprofitable (on a macro level) development of carbon-capture technology. This delay also muzzled Harper. Unfortunately, those who really lose out on this are people in remote areas drinking contaminated groundwater who are told to suck it up.