August 16th, 2011

It’s time to turn our attention to the Keystone XL pipeline, targeted for possible approval by the US this fall and the subject of imminent protests planned for late summer in D.C..

To the oil industry, this 1,700-mile transcontinental pipeline, which is teed up to carry crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries in Texas, would bring a gusher of profits, creating jobs, filling gas tanks and boosting America’s energy security.
Environmentalists hold a much darker view of the thick tar sands project, citing its destruction of Canadian forests, threat to the vital Ogallala Aquifer in the U.S. and extension of our reliance on the dirty fossil fuels that are overheating the planet. Tar sands oil extraction has been estimated to produce, barrel for barrel, three times the carbon pollution as conventional oil operations.

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