You have to love a newspaper which yammers on about morality, when they are 100% in the bag for all abortion on demand, including late term for no reason. Oh, and a paper which whines about fossil fuels yet uses vast amounts itself to distribute their paper edition using fossil fueled vehicles. And their decomposing papers release greenhouse gases, not too mention all the trees killed. And let’s not forget that ‘climate change’ is bad for minorities, women, and the poor, and the NYTEB is composed primarily of rich white people
No to Keystone, Yes to the Planet
Nearly every mainstream climate scientist has said that a big portion of the fossil fuels now in the ground must remain there if the world is to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. That simple fact lay at the heart of President Obama’s decision on Friday to say no to the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
The decision, which ends seven years of legal and political wrangling, was correct, on moral as well as scientific grounds. The pipeline, when completed, would have carried about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Of course, this just means Canada will build a pipeline to their west coast, and send the oil to China. Or build a pipeline to the east. And the United States will not see the economic activity out of it. It’s great that the Times is taking the position of the extreme “climate scientists” and climate activists, who want all fossil fuels left in the ground now. How will the Times distribute its papers? How will all those on the Editorial Board travel from their McMansions to their jobs?
In the grand scheme of things, this would add little to a global output that now exceeds 90 million barrels a day. But the cumulative impact could be huge: The tar sands contain 170 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today’s technology and perhaps 10 times that amount in potential resources. Because the proposed pipeline was seen as crucial to the exploitation of these resources, allowing it to go forward would have put the United States in the position of enabling a project that, over time, would add significantly to already dangerous levels of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.
We were told that anything about 350ppm meant doom for the planet. Then we were told the number was 400ppm. Yet, there’s nary a difference between the early part of the 20th Century and now.
So Mr. Obama chose to draw a line. As he put it, “Ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.â€
Does anyone notice the hypocrisy? This from a guy who uses vast amounts of fossil fuels to jet to the West Coast, what with the helicopter to the airport, the 2 jumbo jets, the Air Force fighter jets which protect Air Force 1, and the massive almost 20 car convoy, all for typically a quick government event (due to campaign repayment costs) followed by golf and several fundraisers.
Obama, like most Warmists, is scientifically illiterate: CO2 is not a pollutant.
Rejecting the Keystone pipeline should further enhance his credibility and that of the United States on this issue. “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,†he said. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.â€
And there it is: it’s all about Mr. Obama’s street cred, rather than anything that could help American as a whole. Like everything else he does. He’s happy to help, or at least (mostly) patronize certain interest groups, but, he’s doing this for Himself.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Teach you are advocating making it easier to ship North American fuel away from the USA
Right now Midwest refineries can force Cansda to sell to us at a 25% fiscount because WE are the only customer
You say you want the USA to not be dependent on Mideast oil ?
Canada can not build a pipeline over the Canadian Rockies if they could have they already would of gone so
Typical knee jerk rightwing reaction ” if the hippies are against it I must be for it”
Under Obama we now are seeing gas under 2$ I paid $1.65 in nj at Costco
Weren’t we told that energy prices were going to skyrocket under dictator Obama? Do you remember 4.50$ gas under Bush
Right john.
After all, China doesn’t want any more oil at all.
You remember China, don’t you john? They’re the country that you advocated as being huge partners in the war on global warming? Now we find out that China has been lying about their greenhouse emissions to the extent of a factor that is equal to all of the coal burned in the US. C’mon john. Where is your outrage? You railed against coal plants here in the US and now suddenly you are silent.
As for gas prices, once again the prices have nothing to do with Obama. In fact, Obama’s plan was to keep gas prices high in the $5 – $6 range. That failed when Obama found out that he couldn’t control the markets like he thought. Though his administration sought to limit drilling and exploration on public grounds, private grounds opened up. Add that to the fact that the Saudis are keeping the taps open and you have lower prices.
Once again we see how you have no clue as to what you are talking about and conveniently ignore things that are against your beliefs.
Stay under the bridge troll.
John-I’m sure you didn’t know that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would have had the same origin and destination point as the pipeline that is already up and running called, also, Keystone, except that it would take a more direct route. So the liberal logic goes like this: existing pipeline already carrying oil, ok. New proposed pipeline with same start and end points but covering a shorter distance and no doubt stricter safety standards, BAD. Got it? “Under Obama we are seeing gas under $2 a gallon.”. That’s inspite of Obama, not because of him. “Weren’t we told that energy prices would skyrocket under dictator Obama”? Yes John, we were-by dictator Obama. So he’s even more inept than we thought, if that could be possible.
Not exactly. From 350.0rg: The number 350 means climate safety: to preserve a livable planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 400 parts per million to below 350 ppm.
Our current atmospheric CO2 trajectory will take our Earth to a several degrees F higher mean temperature.
Not exactly. We will shoot past 400ppm. 400ppm will cause less warming than 450ppm. See the simple logic there? 350ppm will cause less warming than 400ppm. This has been explained to you many, many times but you seem impervious to learnings: No knowledgeable person claims that as soon as we hit 350ppm or 400ppm or 450ppm that things change. No knowledgeable person would believe that either. If we lock atmospheric CO2 at 400ppm, the Earth will continue to warm until it reaches an equilibrium where the amount of energy leaving equals that arriving – obviously, this would be a higher temperature setpoint. Added CO2 slows the loss of heat – that’s why the Earth is warming now.
Huh? William, are you really that stupid, are you being silly or just being a propagandist? The Earth has warmed 0.8C since the early 20th Century. That’s a whopping increase! Up until the current rapid warming period, the entire temperature range in the Holocene was only about 0.6C! It’s highly probable that the current mean surface temperature is the highest of the entire Holocene.
https://ourchangingclimate.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hockeystick-marcott_mann2008.png?w=500&h=630
Even the ‘lukewarmer’ position on global warming has become untenable on the basis of both observations & theory.
Sensitivity to CO2 almost zero.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/11/even-lukewarmer-position-on-global.html
There goes J again with his “rapid” b.s. Again, rapid compared to what? Even if comparing the Holocene in general terms, you’re still looking at only 11,700 years. And we’re comparing temperature changes taken with thermometers compared to ..what? Certainly not thermometers, so it’s apples to oranges. With climate change being 4 billion years old, “rapid” is an irrelevant term, no matter how many times J tries to stuff it in his posts. “That’s a whopping increase!” You have no idea if it’s whopping or not, sorry.
Rapid and whopping compared to prior temperature excursions in the Holocene. Does it seem likely to you that there were swings in the mean global temperature of nearly 1C that were undetected by the proxy measurements? From the warmest (except for the current whopping and rapid increase) to the coldest period in the Holocene was only about 0.6C. Does it seem reasonable that the temperature was increasing and decreasing wildly and that this current warming period is just another one of those undetected excursions?
Rapid and whopping are synonyms for fudging and tampering.
No, no they aren’t.