Posted on 12/31/2013 5:41:12 AM PST by thackney
Here's something to watch in 2014: the collective psyche of the green movement.
If President Obama green-lights the Keystone pipeline, the movement will face questions about its tactics and goals at a level unseen since major climate-change legislation collapsed on Capitol Hill in 2010.
"If the pipeline is approved, it's a defeat for 350.org, Sierra Club, et al, with no real strategy for what comes next," said Alex Trembath, a policy analyst with the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank whose founders have often criticized movement tactics.
Whatever the decision, it will be a defining moment for a movement that has had its ups and downs under Obama.
After the 2010 climate-bill defeat, some analysts and activists wondered whether several big green groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, had launched a tactically shaky campaign that required too many concessions before failing outright.
Among the criticisms of the cap-and-trade campaign: too much hope that a few Senate Republicans would come along (they didn't); an inside-Congress strategy without enough outside pressure; and too much footsie with big corporate players.
Some of the same kind of soul-searching will occur if (and it's only an "if") Obama approves Keystone, a decision that's likely to come in 2014.
But Dan Becker, a longtime Sierra Club veteran who now directs the Safe Climate Campaign, doesn't think losing on Keystone would be the same kind of demoralizing moment as the collapse of the cap-and-trade bill in 2010.
"This is very different from the cap-and-trade bill, which I personally thought was the wrong approach and was not something the grassroots cared about or supported," he said. "Would I have chosen this?," he said of the Keystone fight. "Maybe not, but it has brought energy into the movement, it has brought new adherents in, it has brought new leadership in."
And to be sure Keystone, however it turns out, is not a rerun of the cap-and-trade fight. The campaigns have been very different. This time, environmentalists have targeted a single White House decision and waged an outside-in mass campaign with a different set of leaders—first and foremost,Bill McKibben of the upstart 350.org.
Others include Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, a veteran of the pugilistic Rainforest Action Network, who has brought some of that rabble-rousing to Sierra since 2010.
A lot of climate activists are all-in, transforming Keystone from a project en route to quiet approval into the highest-profile climate battle in recent years.
"It is not going to be pleasant if it is approved," said Robert J. Brulle, a Drexel University sociologist who studies environmental movements. "I think that one thing we can be pretty sure of is that the marriage between the greens and the Democratic Party will be brought under pretty severe review."
Critics who say climate change is a big problem but that Keystone is the wrong battle are ready to pounce. Some take issue with environmentalists who say Keystone XL would be a major contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions to begin with (it all depends on how much you think it's a linchpin for expansion of carbon-intensive oil-sands development).
Trembath, who calls coal-fired power a much bigger enemy than Keystone, argued that even blocking the pipeline would be a "nominal victory ... without any apparent path forward."
The criticism is well underway even before a decision is rendered.
New York magazine's Jonathan Chait, in late October, agreed with the argument that stopping Keystone would do very little to slow greenhouse-gas emissions, calling EPA plans to regulate existing coal-fired plants as a far more important fight. "The whole crusade increasingly looks like a bizarre misallocation of political attention," he wrote.
But Keystone critics say the fight is both consequential for the climate and a movement-builder. It has included civil disobedience and mass rallies that saw young activists pour into Washington.
"We had not seen that type of in-the-street action for decades," said Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity. "That has rejuvenated the movement. It has rekindled a spirit that was missing."
Our damn president...The pipeline is a short cut from the existing line. This should have been approved years ago. He’s damn embarrassing. Canada is about the only friendly neighbor we have in the Americas.
Obama was never against the pipeline. It’s the environmentalists who he has to kiss up to as long as they’re needed. Not much longer.
Instead it will be shipped over the Rockies via the all-Canadian Northern Gateway Pipeline to the terminal at Kitimat. Then on to Chinese bound tankers and offloaded at Dalian, China and other points east.
In one stroke, killing Keystone has resulted in:
1) Weakening the US economy.
2) Strengthening the Chinese economy.
3) Creating doubt in Canada about America's reliability as an economic ally.
Whose policy is this?
If the pipeline is approved, maybe they can focus their energies on melting the Anarctic ice that has trapped the global warming research boat. One bucket at a time.
Obama is NOT gonna OK the pipeline - ever.
He has refused to do so since day one. He is receiving little public criticism for his refusal & the MSM has his back on this. He ignores Canada. Domestic oil/gas production is soaring.
What possible incentive does he have to approve?
He needs to talk as if approval is possible, up until the next elections.
The oil/train accident in North Dakota would have been averted if the oil was moving via pipeline. But the pipeline ? is too dangerous. Warren Buffets trains are safer, so they say.
Yeah, all he does is talk & it’s all lies.
I’m wondering, with all our increased domestic production, do we have the refining capacity to handle the Canadian crude?
why the heck does that pipeline shown bend out of the way to go through Illinois ?
who designed that?
It is an existing pipeline that was originally built to bring oil from Canada to the refineries in that area. This project is reversing the flow and changing from crude oil to gas condensate (natural gas liquids like propane, ethane, butane),
It is an existing pipeline that was originally built to bring oil from Canada to the refineries in that area. This project is reversing the flow and changing from crude oil to gas condensate (natural gas liquids like propane, ethane, butane),
Yes. We currently produce ~7.8 MMBPD of crude oil.
U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M
Our refinery capacity is ~17.6 MMBPD.
U. S. Operating Crude Oil Distillation Capacity
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MOCGGUS2&f=M
We are currently importing ~7.5 MMBPD. Getting more from Canada and less from OPEC would be a good thing.
U.S. Imports by Country of Origin
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbblpd_m.htm
To Obama, It’s better to have train derailments to prove a point.
Then EPA can move in and shut it all down.
Let’s see now. Kill the Keystone Pipeline and ship the oil over the rails in those things called TRAINS.
This very morning I’ve been reading about ANOTHER(!!!) train wreck involving oil transport that is threatening another town. People in a several mile radius are advised to evacuate.
The Sierra Club seems to want a “People Free Zone” created across the country..sort of a new railroad “Right of Way.”
Idiocy as well an environmental disasters on wheels.
HORSEPUCKEY
Where is the lawsuit against the railroad company whose trains spilled a bunch of oil yesterday? Does Warren Buffett own that train? Is that why there is little news about it today?
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