African Catholic Climate Activists Warn Against Proposed Pipeline

Crux ^ | 9/12/20 | Frederick Nzwili

[marshmallow]

NAIROBI, Kenya — As Catholic groups worldwide divest from fossil fuels, some priests, environmental conservationists and activists in East Africa are resisting an oil pipeline taking shape in their region.

They say the proposed 896-mile East African Crude Oil Pipeline also threatens the livelihoods of local communities.

“We are saying no to the pipeline. It is not good for the ecosystem. Our concern is that the many people would suffer in case of a spill or leak,” Capuchin Brother Benedict Ayodi, Global Catholic Climate Movement program manager for Africa, told Catholic News Service. “Our call is on the partners involved to delay or completely stop the pipeline. It is unacceptable.”

The opposition to the pipeline comes at a time when Ugandan officials are upbeat that the landlocked East African country will become one of Africa’s leading oil producers. The pipeline would collect crude oil from Kabaale in western Uganda and drop it into storage and load-out facilities at Chongoleani Peninsula near Tanga, an Indian Ocean port in Tanzania.

In 2006, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced the oil’s discovery after years of exploration and promised to use the wealth for development. The oil — estimated at 1.7 billion barrels — is buried in rock in the Albertine Graben basin of Lake Albert on the border between Uganda and Congo.

But as the project shapes up, groups opposed to the pipeline warn that establishment means increased greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. For them, the pipeline is unwanted at a time when the world is trying to find ways to reduce the gases, which scientists blame for global warming. Apart from emissions, they also fear the project will trigger displacement, threaten water sources, wetlands and protected wildlife and environmental areas, and jeopardize the local communities’ incomes.

[doc maverick]

Muslims, war lords and poachers have caused more damage to Africa and Madagascar than the climate ever has.
Global warming is a theory, NOT a proven fact.
In fact, it is a HUGE SCAM to destroy the civilized world just like covid.

[ebb tide]

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