The Keystone XL Pipeline

It's basically all your fault Balmung. You are a smart guy and or girl, and should rule the state with an iron (but green colored) fist by now. Get to it already!

Kidding aside, I suspect its the corn/ethanol lobby. Somehow. Though it is strange that they would oppose windmills, as windmills are typically put on farmland and don't really do anything to disrupt the farming, so yeah...I've got nothing either!

Part of the problem is that no matter how much you put into the clean up, the extraction itself will have done horrible damage while it's going on and will cause substantial permanent damage and cause a major health hazard.

Well, part of it is that, to my knowledge, we aren't really wanting for electrical generation here in Nebraska, but we do have two wind facilities and nine hydroelectric. I think the big problem is that (to my knowledge) there aren't many places in the state with consistent wind sufficient for reliable wind power, and most that we do have are far out west, where it'd be nowhere near much of anybody.

edited 15th Nov '11 10:07:27 PM by Balmung

USAF, given the generally good relationship between Canada and the US I don't think this one deal is going to queer up political relations between us so much it's completely RUINED FOREVER. Besides, it's fucking up the environment and bullying people off their homes. If the people in Nebraska can end up keeping their homes, I call that a victory for justice.

Heh... heh... about that...

Yeah, this is what is called a primary succession event in ecology - namely, when there is nothing left to start over with. They have stripped away every layer of topsoil, down to bedrock, for an area the size of England. There aren't even any seeds left behind, much less soil - there's just no way to repair it. It's almost like what happens after a glacier melts and leaves behind the bedrock it was covering. Not saying that its hopeless - you'd be surprised what life can do when we leave it alone to fix our messes - but when you factor in the toxins in the local water supply, it looks grim. I can see maybe some ferns surviving in that kind of environment, but not much else, not for a long while.

The relationship between US and Canada isn't going to get soured because we couldn't build a pipeline to screw up your country environmentally. You know what the problem is that the US government is corrupt and the business practices south of the border are insane. The shit that is happening would never fly in Canada and the environmental regulations up north are far more restrictive. If you look at the kinds of business practices that the same corporation employs in Canada versus United States, it's like night and day. The same corporation in Canada had very well run pipelines, and in the US, would let it leak for days and pollute whole lakes without care.

If American people want the project to follow proper regs, put out your voice. It works. The line was already rerouted around the Sand Hills. Just bitch more.

But at the same time, I feel it would be more profitable for Canada to sell the oil to China. The oil will be sold, I doubt that anything in Canada is going to prevent that with Harper in charge. He's a kind of guy who believes in "clean" coal. So, if it's going to be sold and we're going to devastate Canada's environment, destroy native-american lands, pollute everything, wipe out forests and have birds swimming in giant toxic tailing ponds, then you know what... might as well do it for as much money as possible because we're going to have to pay for the cleanup. Technically, all the damage can be cleaned up... it's just a matter of spending tax dollars.

The mentality down here is that any company that can turn a profit and lay waste to the ecosystem*

Actually, I'd honestly not pay to clean it up. Let it be a testament to future generations what human greed and selfishness can do when good men and women sit on their hands.

Also, in all honesty, as an ecologist I can confirm that the majority of "human attempts to fix environmental damage" prove to be a complete was of time, and that nature has a process that fixes things if we let it. For example, in Yellowstone they used to plant seeds in areas devastated by fire, hoping to grow new trees faster. Well, because they planted the wrong kinds of seeds, they actually prevented the ecosystem from repairing itself as quickly as it normally does on its own, because the planted seeds prevented the natural "recovery species" from growing in the damage region, and without those pioneer species the entire healing cycle was shorted out - no annual wildflowers meant that there was no shade to protect young saplings, and without saplings some of the less durable grasses couldn't set in, and that drove the bison away...you get the point. Basically, don't touch it, let it do what it does normally, and in time it will get right back to where it once was.

Nature even has ways for dealing with toxins. Many fern species take them up into their leaves, removing metal toxins from the soil, and when the fern dies off its leaves scatter and are carried by the wind across a wider area, diluting pollution locally. There's also millions of species of bacteria that can bind to toxins and alter them chemically, making them less toxic.

Basically, nature can heal, it just needs a lot of time and to be left alone. The problem is that if we do all this damage in the short-term, we might start to lose species in the process, and that just slows down ecosystem recovery drastically.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/657135/

That article doesn't exactly say that Canada is enforcing its regulations, breadloaf. Frankly, I'm surprised more Canadians aren't bitching about this, because it's so short sighted.

Yeah, the question of who Canada should sell to is moot, as Canada shouldn't be doing this shit period.

What's your excuse for letting this go on? I mean, the US has a fucked-up political climate to work with where our politicians don't actually represent us, but I didn't know the Canadians had one.

The current political situation in Canada is something like this: Everyone who opposes Harper is either dead, in the middle of finding a leader or the green party. Harper just happened to catch the country when our great left leaders all left or died so he can basically do whatever he wants.

If it makes you feel any better, Canada actually has eco terrorists who will most likely destroy large chunks of this pipeline once or twice.

If they could sabotage/destroy the equipment being used for the actual extraction, that would make me feel even better.

Indeed. the oil sands are not pretty and simply not worth it, no matter how rich it makes Alberta.

@OP: I think we should sell it to China, unless there's a damn good reason to give it to the States on their terms, while losing quite a bit of money on it, to boot. I haven't been following US/Canada relations for quite a while now, so I'm not too sure what those might be (there are probably quite a few, or this wouldn't even be a discussion), but I don't think "let's suck the US's dick so they'll play nice with us" is a valid one.

Everyone who opposes Harper is either dead, in the middle of finding a leader or the green party. Harper just happened to catch the country when our great left leaders all left or died so he can basically do whatever he wants

>implying the C Onservatives won't lose the next election

@ Aceof

We've been enforcing regulations, the problem is the current government that just eeked out a majority out of sheer political luck. So the current government has been letting the tar sands project fly. The only good thing they did was cut the subsidies. Why there were even subsidies in the first place baffles me.

The NDP leader died of cancer, the liberal party is in financial woes and the last of the Trudeau-era politicians retired half a decade ago and the Green party just started.

We killed pipeline projects over ecological reasons before but those were... better government days when they actually gave a shit what scientists said.

@ Jeysie

This whole mess is a confluence of American government corruption and the Canadian opposition parties ALL failing at once for completely different reasons.

@ thatguythere

Probably only if we sold to China, since the eco-terrorists are in BC. If we sold to China, the pipeline would have to go through BC.

edited 16th Nov '11 8:28:00 AM by breadloaf

The Keystone XL pipeline wouldn't just damage the local ecology; it would be a global-scale environmental disaster. Here's what a top climate scientist had to say about it ("U.S. Climate Protests Shift to Blocking Keystone XL Pipeline Approval"):

The oil in the tar sands shouldn't go to the U.S. or China or anywhere else. It should be left in the ground.

@breadloaf

Any chance of voting out the current people backing this soon enough to have the new people repeal and overturn the project?

If by some miracle it gets blocked from going through the USA (it just might, but already they are starting to saturate the media with "Obama wants to kill keystone pipeline jobs" adds, and if it becomes an issue in the upcoming campaign Obama might cave), then it has to go through BC, and that province has a lot of environmentalists who might be able to block it there. If they can't build any pipelines, then the tar sands project is just about finished since transcanada wouldn't be able to cheaply transport the oil to shipping lanes (and tar sand oil is actually very expensive to make; the only reason it is affordable now is based on projections that a cheap oil pipeline will be built).

The future of our entire planet could rest on whether or not the United States can stop the pipeline. So get the word out, tell your friends, neighbors, and family that the keystone xl will destroy American jobs and cause devastating harm to the environment to boot.

Bumping to bring over from the 2012 election thread. The pipeline bill was attached as a rider to the Payroll Tax Cut extension, which democrats and the white house have sworn to fight against, IE they will veto the tax cuts if it means also vetoing the pipeline.

Yeah... this is gonna suck...

The Republicans can't actually force it through that way. What their rider does is impose a timetable on the approval process, and the State Department has said that they'd be forced to reject the pipeline outright if this happens; it wouldn't give them enough time to assess it properly.

Hasn't the government gone into a shut down over this very issue? Which I think was what they said over in the Elections thread.

Here's something from the Bold Nebraska site about it; http://www.boldnebraska.org/keystone_rider

edited 14th Dec '11 5:59:10 PM by AceofSpades

@Enthryn: Really? In that case, I wouldn't be too upset if it was passed and the state-department did deny it. That's a win-win.

Here's the source.