It’s Not Me, It’s You

The Keystone XL pipeline is a travesty.  Indeed the whole idea of the Alberta tar sands should be, at this late date, anathema.  However, never let it be said that the oil companies and their henchpersons, in Canada and the U.S., are able to actually even consider the health of the planet and the natural environment of the regions in which they operate.  I’ve been reading a book about the Prohibition era in the U.S. – Last Call by Daniel Okrent – and one particular quote – about the US Brewers’ Association – struck me as being applicable to the fossil fuel special interests:  That the USBA’s opposition to women’s suffrage, allied to the prohibitionist cause, was  “a matter of conviction so deeply rooted it could only have been motivated by financial self-interest.”

The excellent activists at 350.org want you to send a message to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  The Keystone XL is not in America’s best interests.  (That’s one of the leitmotifs of my two-part article at DeSmogBlog from a couple of years back.)  Neither, for that matter, is it in the best interests of our Canadian brothers and sisters.

If you’re not sufficiently sold on how bad an idea the Keystone XL pipeline is at this point, as the girl in this great video from the Post Carbon Institute is, then read 350.org founder Bill McKibben’s blockbuster article in the most recent Rolling Stone.  If you aren’t convinced by now of the threat from climate change, and how projects like Keystone XL exacerbate our already parlous situation, you will be by McKibben’s eloquence and insight.


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