Climate change rocks a key Michigan Senate race

http://grist.org/politics/climate-change-rocks-a-key-michigan-senate-race/

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That was the Michigan I knew, back in the late ’90s. But today, climate change is a big issue in the state — literally. It looks to be the key issue in the upcoming Senate race between Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and the Republican candidate, former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land.

“Michigan is on the front lines of climate change with our Great Lakes and economic system,” Peters told Greg Sargent of the Washington Post. “The Great Lakes are incredibly important for Michigan. This is something elected officials should be talking about — we have to be concerned about it.”

What has brought this concern about? Trouble, mostly. The rupture of Enbridge Line No. 6 into the Kalamazoo River, also known as the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, provided an involuntary civic education in contemporary crude extraction and transportation. So has the three-story high pile of petroleum coke that the Koch brothers left on the shores of the Detroit River (it’s since disappeared), and this year’s refinery spill on the other side of Lake Michigan.

Given how much pre-existing pipeline infrastructure runs along the Great Lakes, Michigan is at high risk of being a site for future oil spills, while the lakes themselves are beginning to show signs of being affected by climate change.