By Tim Baldwin
President Barack Obama recently rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline permit application. Bakken supporters advance that Obama’s rejection of the pipeline catered to extreme environmentalists. Obama claimed that he rejected the application due to climate change considerations.
Some use “climate change” to advance certain political agenda, not all of which is science-based. If politicians truly believe that human habitation is in jeopardy due to climate change, it will drive them to prevent many economic activities – ones that, for now, keep America prosperous. This agenda will consequently deprive people of certain liberties and pursuits of happiness, which has many detriments to all of us.
People who are directly harmed by these decisions, of course, can file legal action for remedies. Such lawsuits can test the legal validity legal and political decisions that deprive people of economic liberty. Some have already been successful. So while the larger theory cannot be adjudicated in court, specific allegations made by parties concerning damages to the environment can.
Still, the climate change agenda reveals itself mostly through the president, who has the power over, e.g., domestic environment bureaucracies and international permits, treatise, and policies. Such decisions may have, unfortunately, nothing to do with admissible evidence as required in court. Tremendous power!
Science exists independently of religious, political or corporate dogma. People should learn truth from science and not from distorting influences. We hope, meanwhile, that decisions of non-truth-seeking politicians do not cause America to suffer.
By Joe Carbonari
Reluctantly, I still favor the Keystone Pipeline Project. There are unknowns involved – just how global warming will affect us is prime among them. Who knows how high the water will rise; how bad the storms will be? I’m going with the best minds and experts in the world who say, in effect, “It will be overwhelmingly bad … ice melting, oceans rising, and storms and droughts strengthening.”
If we can slow the process, we can better deal with it. If not, most of us, but especially the poor, are going to suffer. We need to lessen our use of fossil fuels. We are on a road to destruction, and we must change direction significantly and soon. That is the consensus of the vast majority of those who study these issues.
However, the prime benefit from stopping the Keystone Project is its potential as a psychological turning point in the world’s commitment to making the sacrifices required. There is a conference on the subject scheduled for Paris next month. We have leadership responsibility, but the Keystone Project may be a poor example of a sacrifice not worth the losses.
That loss includes more energy independence for defense, safer transport of oil, and regional economic stimulus. We cannot shut the tar sands down. We can make the oil more useful and safer. Transition away from oil, but do it wisely.