And a river (of oil) runs through it: How the Keystone XL pipeline will bleed Africa's future dry

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-03-12-and-a-river-of-oil-runs-through-it-how-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-will-bleed-africas-future-dry/



At the present moment, the greatest opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline –basically a tube of money that will ferry environment slaughtering tar sands oil from Canada to America – are tree huggers and folks who wear sandals and socks. In reality, it’s Africans who should be lobbying against Keystone. Because when the United States becomes a net energy exporter, the resources “boom” in Africa is over.

And a river (of oil) runs through it: How the Keystone XL pipeline will bleed Africa's future dry
Richard Poplak
12 March 2013 02:08 (South Africa)

If you enjoy birds, grass, trees, animals, First Nations people, the future, or any combination of the aforementioned, the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline will probably rub you the wrong way. The pipeline is a long-in-the-works project designed to schlep 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day, from the Canadian province of Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska, and onwards to the Gulf Coast region (roughly Houston, Texas, to Lake Charles, Louisiana), almost all of which is meant for export. The pipeline itself would run almost 3,500km, through some fairly pristine terrain, including untouched parts of Nebraska.

Climate change has been top-ish of the Obama agenda since he rallied hundreds of thousands of beardos and granolas during his 2008 campaign, duly throwing those constituents under the proverbial diesel-spewing bus when he no longer needed to add Twitter followers. No US president has paid such lip service to the environment and done so little in support of it. But the environment lobby’s cause célèbre – it’s Death Star, if you will – is the Keystone pipeline. If Obama allows this to happen, his legacy will be forever smeared with goops of filthy crude, like a BP-kissed sea bird.

The State Department has just published a second environmental assessment of a recently revised route for Keystone that now avoids the sensitive Sand Hills area of Nebraska. The assessment is sober in the extreme, and avoids any recommendations on whether the pipeline should go forward or not. The crappily Photoshopped cover page of the executive summary is comprised of a badly rendered map, and thumbnails of several animals and birds, none of which I have encountered before. (One looks like a cross between a panda, an otter and a house cat – in other words, nothing you’d want drown in a pool of 93 unleaded.) There are also images of farmland, and a body of water, presumably a lake. You get the picture – it’s all about the nature, dude!

Because the pipeline crosses national borders, the decision falls directly with the president’s office – Obama must sign the executive order, and it is his signature, and his alone, that seals its fate. He knows that oil from the Canadian tar sands is filthier, costlier and more damaging to his climate credentials than any other on Earth. (Fouling Nigeria is less of a worry, as far as North Americans are concerned.) According to the New York Times, the process yields 17 times the greenhouse gas emissions of regular crude oil, to say nothing of the vast tracks of forest that lie atop the sands, all ready to be mowed down for further development. The tar sands foul streams and waterways, and ruin land owned by First Nations peoples. (Who, by the way, are largely onside, given how much they stand to benefit financially.)