Posted on 01/31/2014 3:35:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
The State Department today released its long-awaited environmental impact analysis of the Keystone XL pipeline. The analysis is key because President Obama announced last summer he would not approve the pipeline unless it was found to have no significant impact on climate change. And that’s what the analysis finds. It argues, as many other analysts have concluded, that if we block the pipeline, Canada will just ship the oil out by rail. So, what public policy reason is there to block the pipeline? There really isn’t one. Indeed, the environmentalists' obsession with Keystone began as a gigantic mistake. Two and a half years ago, the environmentalist James Hansen wrote a blog post alerting his readers to the pipeline, which he concluded would amount to “game over” for the climate, as it would lead to the burning of enough new oil to moot any effort to limit runaway greenhouse gases. His analysis was based on a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation that turned out to be wrong in several respects, the most important being the assumption that blocking the pipeline would keep the oil in the Canadian oil sands in the ground.
The anti-Keystone movement was an accident. I recently argued that it was a huge mistake. Numerous allies of the environmental movement replied that it did make sense, after all. (See Joe Romm, Matthew Yglesias, Charles Pierce, and Ryan Cooper. All of them insisted that Keystone is indeed a good issue for environmentalists to organize around because it’s easy for people to understand. As Yglesias put it, “You sometimes need to focus on slightly eccentric issues that happen to have good organizing attributes.”)
Cooper mockingly asks readers to envision a protest where organizers shout, “What do we want?” “More stringent carbon dioxide emission regulations on extant coal-fired power plants!” “When do we want it?’ “After the extraordinarily complicated rule-writing process over which the president has no direct control!” It certainly may be easier to get people excited about opposing a pipeline. It may also be hard to get people excited about favoring new regulations.
But if your goal is to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, you need to have a strategy designed to advance policies that limit greenhouse-gas emissions. Stopping Keystone doesn’t do that. EPA regulations would. Would blocking the Keystone pipeline make it easier for Obama to issue tough regulations on existing power plants, and to negotiate an international climate treaty in 2015 after such regulations bring us into compliance with our reduction targets?
I don't see how. I think it would feed criticism by opponents that Obama is captive to environmentalists, even to the point of following their quixotic and marginal obsessions. Approving Keystone might give him more credibility to defend tough regulations. It's not guaranteed, of course. But the intuitive idea is for a movement to organize around the issues that matter, not the issues that are easiest to explain. Building a movement by misleading people is a strange choice.
OK, for ten points, boys and girls, what's wrong with this picture?
It must NOT be built because it will cause a decrease in food stamps and unemployment. Those must be preserved at all costs to ensure the sheeple are kept subservient to the messyiah.
Building a movement by misleading people is a strange choice.
It is the key choice of Leftists. It is their main strategy. The entire “progressive movement is built on this idea. If they did not have to mislead people, democracy would work, the Constitution would not have to be torn down, and the idea that we would need experts to make every decision for us would not be required.
However, if people are too stupid and ignorant to make their own decisions, then you *must* mislead them.
There is only one reason not to: that guy in a white house.
The pipeline is already built.
It is just not allowed to cross the border.
I repeat the question, with a slight change: For ten points, boys and girls, what is wrong with this sentence:
The State Department today released its long-awaited environmental impact analysis
Obama will finally approve this like he’s doing us a big favor....It should have been approved years ago.
Anybody with an ant's brain knew the pipeline was going to be built; it was either going west or south, but in no reality was that oil just going to stay in the ground.
Warren Buffet owns the trains and is a contributor. Reason enough for the delay.
Just today, my plumber issued a report on my electrical wiring.
/johnny
Ten points to JRandomFreeper for correctly questioning why the State Dept. is issuing an environmental analysis!
Building a movement by misleading people is a strange choice.
And yet Chait seems incapable of grasping the fact that building a movement by misleading people is the essence of how today's Democrat Party works.
The false choice, the misleading straw-man argument, and the big lie are all hallmarks of 'the Obama way' and the Democrat talking points that parrot his words.
Exactly what is so hard about that for Chait to grasp?
Are united states suppliers able to add their oil/gas to the pipeline? is this just a straight canada to us port for export passthrough?
ON
WITH
IT.
He will approve of it. Come October gas prices will come down and the rats wil take all the credit going into the election.
And the sheeple will bleat Ohhhbahhhhmahhhhhh
“Obama will find a reason to delay it or not build it at all. The socialist left does not want energy independence if it involves US/Canadian produced oil. Our president would much rather support his fellow islamics by buying the oil from them at inflamed and controlled prices. “
Ok with me. I hope he continues being stupid till after the November elections.
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