The Hill: Gore urges President Obama to block pipeline for ‘dirtiest source of fuel on the planet’

Gore urges Obama to block pipeline for ‘dirtiest source of fuel on the planet’
By Andrew Restuccia
09/01/11

Former Vice President Gore called on President Obama late Wednesday to reject a pending permit application for a controversial pipeline project, calling the oil that it would carry “the dirtiest fuel on the planet.”

“The answer to our climate, energy and economic challenges does not lie in burning more dirty fossil fuels — instead, we must continue to press for much more rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and cuts in the pollution that causes global warming,” Gore, a vocal climate activist, wrote on his blog Wednesday night.

The State Department is just months away from a decision on the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian oil sands from Alberta to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Environmental groups and others have mounted an aggressive opposition campaign to the 1,700-mile proposed pipeline. They’ve staged a two-week protest in front of the White House that has led to hundreds of arrests, and put Obama on notice that a failure to block the project could hurt his reelection campaign.

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http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/179145-gore-urges-obama-to-reject-proposed-oil-pipeline

The Keystone XL dilemma

Bill McKibben’s letter pointed out that burning the recoverable oil in the Alberta tar sands by itself would raise the carbon in the atmosphere by 200 parts per million (ppm). It wasn’t hard to figure out that this would increase the 390 ppm carbon in the atmosphere today by more than half. Indeed, it would increase the gap between the current level and the safe level of 350 ppm fivefold.

The letter called the pipeline “a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” It quoted the leading NASA climate change specialist Jim Hansen saying that tar sands “must be left in the ground.” Indeed, “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over” for a viable planet.

It sounded like a pretty compelling case. But there was another letter that made the question harder for me. It was a letter from the General Presidents of the Teamsters, Plumbers, Operating Engineers, and Laborers unions, the last of which helped give me my start as a kid. Their letter enthusiastically supported the Keystone XL project, saying it will “pave a path to better days and raise the standard of living for working men and women in the construction, manufacturing, and transportation industries.” It will allow “the American worker” to “get back to the task of strengthening their families and the communities they live in.” I’ve dedicated 35 years of my life to those goals.

Their position reflects the absolutely critical need for jobs. The Keystone Pipeline will provide a lot of good jobs. (A company-financed study claims it will create 118,000 jobs, though a government environmental impact statement says it will create 5,000 to 6,000, and only for the three-year construction period. Many would be well-paying, middle-class union jobs — the kind with health care and other benefits. And that at a time when the official unemployment rate is close to 10 percent and 2 million construction workers — one in five — are out of work.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11859/why_im_protesting_the_keystone_pipeline_with_bill_mckibben/