McKibben writes: "The irony of the Koch Brothers involvement should be lost on no one. The only argument for building the pipeline (which will export its oil off the continent and do nothing at all about gas prices) is that it will provide several thousand good-paying construction jobs."
Environmental activist Bill McKibben. (photo: BillMcKibben.com)
The Koch-Stone XL Pipeline
13 May 12
wo pieces of crucial evidence emerged in the tar sands fight yesterday. One, happily, got all kinds of notice - Jim Hansen's op-ed in the New York Times was the "most emailed" item of the day, which is appropriate since he explained new calculations showing that those Canadian deposits contain "twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history." If we burn them on top of all the coal and oil and gas we're already using, "concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era," the government's leading climate scientist explained, which you think would be enough to end the debate - even in our weird political culture, there aren't many leaders clamoring to return us to the Pliocene.
But the debate continues - in fact, House leaders are busily trying to fasten automatic approval of the Keystone Pipeline, the biggest straw into the pipelines yet, onto a must-pass transportation bill. So the other crucial analysis that emerged yesterday is probably just as important. It demonstrates the real power behind the drive for tar sands oil: the Koch Brothers. They'd long insisted that they didn't have a stake in the Keystone Pipeline, and in the most narrow lawyerly sense that may be true. But the expose from from journalist David Sassoon pierced the secrecy of the Koch brother's private holdings to show that "at the top of the list are the Koch family's long and deep investments in Canada's heavy oil industry, which have been central to the company's initial growth and subsequent diversification since 1959." Their companies are among the largest importers of tar sands crude to the U.S., and the largest holders of mineral leases across Alberta - they're up to their necks in the tarry stuff.
And to protect that investment, they've done what they always do: buy influence. According to an article last year in the Los Angeles Times, Koch Industries and its employees were the largest oil and gas industry donors to the new members of the House subcommittee on energy and power, including new chair Fred Upton of Michigan, contributing $279,500 to 22 of 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats. Little wonder, then, that Upton - long considered an environmental moderate in the GOP - soon became the leader of the fight to build the Keystone Pipeline, even now pushing to shut down environmental reviews and provide a permit.
The irony of the Koch Brothers involvement should be lost on no one. The only argument for building the pipeline (which will export its oil off the continent and do nothing at all about gas prices) is that it will provide several thousand good-paying construction jobs. That's nothing to sneeze at. But in so doing it will prop up the people doing most to undermine the union movement in this country. Construction workers that depend on, say, the Davis-Bacon Act and its support for prevailing wages on public projects have their most powerful enemy in the Kochs, who have helped create the anti-union campaigns in Wisconsin, Indiana, and so many other places.
Despite the power of the Kochs, this battle is still very much alive. First Nations people rallied in Toronto yesterday - environmentalists and trade unionists have joined with indigenous people across Canada in an inspired fight against other proposed pipelines that would carry tar sands crude to China. So far they're winning - the projects have drawn more public comment and opposition than any infrastructure plans in Canadian history. It's entirely possible that we'll be able to keep most of the tar sands oil in the ground.
It's also entirely possible that oil money will carry this fight as it has so many others - at the moment in Washington, only a handful of senators, led by Barbara Boxer, stand in the path of congressional approval. But at least, as of yesterday, we know exactly the stakes and exactly the players.
Bill McKibben is scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and the author of "The End of Nature, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities" and the "Durable Future and Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet." He is also the founder of 350.org, the global climate campaign that has been actively involved in the fight against natural gas fracking.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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She is fighting for us and for the environment. He is determined to destroy it. He doesn't even believe in evolution and surly not in climate change.
The list of reasons to put an end to this folly is unending; the single reason to support it (new jobs) is not even as good as the corporate media make it seem. Construction jobs are not permanent. Once the thing is built, the jobs evaporate (except for the occasional human monitor required to report not if but when and where the first leaks occur).
Of course, I have nothing against construction jobs - the more the merrier - but wouldn't it be nice if investment could be made in construction and renovation projects that actually built something useful?
Some new schools would be good, and maybe some transportation facilities that got people and goods from place to place without unnecessary pollution? Urban public transit, for example. Lots of potential person-days of work there!
Sure the pipeline would provide jobs but those jobs would be temporary and if they have their way, wouldn't even pay union wages. This systematic raping of the planet is what we railed against in the sixties. We were only partially sucessful then and it's become much worse over time.
This pipeline, which provides the Koch brothers and Canadian oil companies with windfall profits, while potentially damaging the environment in this country,offers us nothing in return. Jobs that last six months,have the potential to screw up this countrys environment and provide the good people of China with badly needed oil, is not my idea of moving this country forward.
If we're to be sucessful in stopping this travesty from taking place, we must make sure our elected officials that take money from the Koch brothers are put on notice. NO KEYSTONE PIPELINE ! Enough is enough.
Run this pipeline through your own country if it's that important. Oil companies don't own this planet.
TED Talks Tar Sands. Incredible photography with a passionate, conscience-wren ching narrative.
1)All construction jobs are temporary;
2)Koch Industries own this project;
3)Koch Industries doesn't pay union wages;
4)The oil will be sold on the World Market, not kept and used here at home;
5)America and Americans won't benefit;
6)The only country to benefit is China;
7)The Koch brother will become richer;
8)The Koch brother use their money to buy off governments and harm working people;
9)The chance of the Ogalala Aquifer,which supplies fresh and clean drinking water to many American states, particularly in the Midwest, are most at risk;
10)The Koch brothers are no more committed to industrial safety than is BP; what if there is a "spill" into the Ogalala Aquifer?
11)We can depend upon the Conservatives to back peddle from this to blame Obama and the Left for having authorized it, if there is an industrial leak on this pipeline (which is a guarantee at some point);
12)America doesn't need this ugly pipeline running all over the face of multiple states making a mess out of the heartland;
13)Do we trust some CONServative to not actually cause a leak on this pipeline so they CAN blame Obama and the Left? They are crazy enough to commit murder, so why not this, too?
3) I know of no source for this statement. I do know some Koch Industry employees who are very well paid -- much higher than union scale.
4) While the oil will be sold on the world market, our "fair share" of the world market means that some of the oil will be kept in the US and used here at home.
5) To the extent that the new oil increases supply, oil prices will decrease and Americans (as well as any one else who uses oil) will be benefited.
6) Everyone who uses oil will benefit. Not building the pipeline would benefit China since they could then low-ball the price because they would have a virtual monopoly on purchasing the oil.
7) I know of no source for this claim either. If they have no property interest in the pipeline (as admitted by McKibben), I have no idea why anyone would think that they would benefit from its construction.
8) The EPA, no friend of oil, has already declared the arrangements to be environmentally safe.
And you get even more paranoid from there....
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/Keystonexl.html
5) If prices were based solely on supply and demand, that would be true, but with oil, that is definitely not the case.
6) Everyone who uses oil will suffer from the effects of global warming.
7) McKibben writes about "the Koch family's long and deep investments in Canada's heavy oil industry, which have been central to the company's initial growth and subsequent diversification " and "Their companies are among the largest importers of tar sands crude to the U.S., and the largest holders of mineral leases across Alberta - they're up to their necks in the tarry stuff." Please read more carefully.
8) This is not true. A State Department report may have said it was safe, but the EPA said that report was inadequate and unduly narrow because it did not fully look at oil spill response plans, safety issues and greenhouse gas concerns.
There's little more ironic than hyped-up 'environmentali sts' cherry-picking from bloodthirsty neoCON mind war propaganda.
Afghanistan was attacked for the smack.
Iraq was attacked for selling oil in EUROS (that stopped speculation)!
Unlimited credit/loans/de bt to: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIGGS) were used to destroy said EURO.
Libya's: gold, oil, gas and WATER were given to?
AllCIAduh.
As far as changing "the structures of power", it will not happen without a major revolution. Should there be a major revolution, what type of government would then replace what we have now?
Any suggestions?
We are all doing our best, but it is advisable to prepare for a future unknown.
The amount of money required to run for office is also extremely important, and does prevent many good folks from running for office. The other consideration is election fraud and corruption and voting machines that are manipulated in every election.
My cynicism comes from experience and witnesses the changes in the country and the voting process. We can all try, but good to us all.
I will not argue with your observation, Glen as it is dead on. Even with all the other points you make (voting process, etc) most of our elections are pretty clean and the number of votes I'm talking about will be too large to fudge. Also to consider is this: almost every person in Congress wants to get out of the campaign fundraising business but they feel trapped by the system, as they surely are. That being said, we can elect good people who will pledge to do this if we stay focused on electing like-minded people from the local level on up, It is imperative that the state legislatures be controlled by people who will do this.
The money issue to initially run is huge but the so if the potential of the internet. Ask yourself this: what does the money buy? Ads. The Internet and social media can counter; powerful tools to get the word out.
You decide Reganomics brought back 10% Unemployment for 2 years as in 1895-1900 But 1932-37Depressi on again Republican caused under Hoover start. That brought it to 22% Unemployed. Republican 7 men for 40 Years against their worst effects of war or depression caused voters to get off their derry's and oust them bringing back the Democrats 7 men for 44 Years in hope they could save the economic and unemployment or depression days as usual.
Assuming that war with Canada is off the table, The oil will be developed and sold and burned. The only question to be decided is where the oil will go and who will do the refining and burning.
Environmentalists need to ask themselves the question, "Would it be better to transport the oil via a safe pipeline to the US where it will be refined and burned according to the strictest anti=pollution regulations in the world or is it preferable to pipe the oil through some of the most earthquake-pron e lands in the world, ship it to China in a non-double-hull Chinese tanker, and refine and burn it with little or no environmental oversight?
Environmentalists may not much like the proposed pipeline but it would surely be safer and cleaner than any other alternative.
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
Your observation is as disturbingly painful as it is honest.
STOP making sense! You will confuse all of the "green" energy fans.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/11320-focus-the-xl-pipelines-accidental-activist
http://boldnebraska.bigcartel.com/
They would not export oil and import oils at the same moment except for their constitutional freedom entitled, life, liberty and the persuit of profit (To a corporation profit is synonimous with happiness.
ALL logical, factual, intellectual discussion has been poisoned, and any hope of consensus or democratic action is being deliberately stymied by CORPORATIONS and PEOPLE WITH POWER by an ever-growing and increasingly hidden network of totalitarian anti-democratic elite movement that controls vitually ALL THE PUBLIC SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE and has indicated that it means to shut down ANY PUBLIC ACCESS to POLITICAL REDRESS - and can back it up with tools and means that most people have no idea about, and those who understand some of the technology can only guess at.
I'm sure this is important! The effort to destroy some of the most untouched beautiful lands so they can be raped for their TAR SANDS is disastrous, however diverting energy to work within the system at this point is a serious joke. Ha ha … no, not a laughing matter, I think you'll agree.
Something big and decisive has to take the fore in American politics or all this bickering nonsense on the Internet is pointless.
The "bickering" online, though, can be helpful in that sharing facts and events in various communities. Folks do need to discuss even if it comes to naught.
1. I will mine uranium,
and leave the dusty waste in piles,
it's a Utah wind that's blowing,
and from here that's miles and miles...
I will build a power plant,
and never worry 'bout pollution,
I've got it all figured out,
it's such a simple solution...
2. I don't live next door,
so my water and my air stay clean,
I don't live next door,
the waste is carried somewhere else downstream,
all I have to do is keep tht money rolling in,
I don't think about tomorrow or where this all might end,
'cause the rain falls only on the poor,
I don't live next door...
3. When I build a new golf course,
nothing concerns me but the green,
all the pesticides and poisons
flow into someone else's stream,
I can dump my toxic waste
at the bottom of a lake,
I know the barrels will never rust,
but here's the plan just in case...
4. repeat 2
5. I will burn the fossil fuels to create all the power,
who cares if the summer's getting hotter, they're just paying for it by the hour, hour after hour...
6. repeat 2
Gary Burt (copyright 2003)
I take exception. Throughout history when people were pushed to the limit, they fought back. It's no different now,the example being OWS et.al. I agree that these occupiers don't have a good grasp on the depth and severity of the corruption but they have something just as meaningful. They understand the power of the movement. Many splinter groups were trying to align themselves with occupy and they resisted. Eventually, they will rally behind a common cause and then the fun begins.
The movement can no longer be overlooked and will have to be recognized by the 1% as well as the media. I personally would like to see them demand Congress to pass Bernie Sanders bill on big oil and big coal.It's straightforward legislation and would signal a message that we're coming and it's early summer so they can't wait for snow. Perhaps I prefer the glass half full but I think there is more power in occupy than people give them credit for.
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