I own stock in TransCanada and I’ve made a killing. If this was a reckless company, I’d sell the stock as recklessness would lead to big accidents and huge lawsuits. We the shareholder don’t want them to be careless or wreck the environment, who would gain from that?
This guy isn’t comparing the pipeline to the alternatives, which are what exactly? Windmills? He’s tilting at them.
The Sierra Club's alternative is for all of those SUV-driving middle class white people to die and disappear, so no more energy will be needed.
Nevertheless, the author may be unintentionally right about one thing - the excessive focus on oil and gas is taking attention away the development of thorium reactors and other advanced technologies that we absolutely must have to become energy self-sufficient. Unless the cost of energy can be lowered dramatically, it is difficult to see how the next economic boom will ever get started, and without radical advances in energy technology the current depression could drag on for decades.