President Obama's
official rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday
was met with grand applause from those who opposed the project and
organizers who worked tirelessly, despite long odds, to force the
adminstration's hand.
However, even as celebrations were enjoyed and an evening rally was
scheduled outside the White House, there's more to this story than the
simple rejection of a single pipeline and the ultimate climate legacy of
a president who has announced a 'historic' decision.
Mass Movements Work
Through years of unprecedented campaigning, ordinary people in the
United States and Canada turned what could have been an unremarkable
rubber stamping of yet another fossil fuel pipeline into an
internationally-watched fight to stop climate change. Since 2011,
communities across the United States have staged
over 750
direct actions and protests across the country—from mass sit-ins at the
White House to a tens-of-thousands-strong march on the National Mall.
Farmers, workers, students, Indigenous peoples, and communities on the
frontlines of oil refineries and extreme weather
put their bodies and relationships on the line—risking arrest, talking to their neighbors, and taking to the streets.
"The black snake, Keystone XL, has been defeated
and best believe we will dance to our victory!" —Tom Goldtooth,
Indigenous Environmental Network
"We stood our ground and today President Obama stood with us, the
pipeline fighters," said Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska. "Tonight
landowners can finally go to sleep knowing their family is safe and
sound. Our unlikely alliance showed America that hard work and
scientific facts can beat Big Oil’s threat to our land and water."
In the words of Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous
Environmental Network: "The black snake, Keystone XL, has been defeated
and best believe we will dance to our victory!"
Those interested can sign an online
Thank You Card to the Movement
that will be delivered to every single person who has participated in
an action against the Keystone XL pipeline since over the past four
years. And people across the United States are holding
rejection parties to relish in "one golden well-deserved moment" of celebration.
Canada's Win, But Trudeau's "Disappointment"
Even as they celebrated the KXL rejection, Canadian climate activists
on Friday seized on President Barack Obama's statement that
freshly sworn-in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—who publicly
supported
the project on the campaign trail—had "expressed his disappointment"
about the U.S. State Department's decision on the pipeline.
"President Obama just sent a message that
Prime Minister Trudeau should heed—you can’t be a climate leader while
supporting tar sands pipelines." —Mike Hudema, Greenpeace CanadaSocial activist Naomi Klein, for example,
tweeted that Trudeau's reaction was a "BAD way to enter the climate conversation," because "dirty pipelines are the way of the past."
The Keystone development came as Canadian environmentalists entered their second of
four days of civil disobedience, aimed at convincing Trudeau to freeze tar sands development and commit to a justice-based transition to a clean energy economy.
They took Friday's news as a chance to double down on their message:
"Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline sets a new
standard for political climate action,"
said
Clayton Thomas-Muller, Stop it at the Source Campaigner with 350.org
Canada. "Justin Trudeau needs to take note that it is time now to listen
to the science, to Indigenous Peoples, and to freeze tar sands
expansion."
"President Obama just sent a message that Prime Minister Trudeau
should heed—you can’t be a climate leader while supporting tar sands
pipelines,"
added
(pdf) Mike Hudema, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace
Canada. "The prime minister needs to follow the president's lead and
recognize that science demands and the public wants action on climate
change and that can't be done while expanding the tar sands."
Economics of Tar Sands
The pipeline rejection comes amid a
continuing plummet in crude oil prices, which has forced some oil giants to
ditch certain projects and means
dwindling enthusiasm for tar sands production,
because, as "the world's most expensive crude," it just doesn't make economic sense.
Bloomberg reported the rejection was just a confirmation that "there's less appetite for expensive Canadian oil sands in an era of $45 crude."
Yet the falling price of oil has left TransCanada "
undeterred," and as Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners,
told the
New York Times, "How long it takes [to move tar sands crude] is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out."
A 'Historic' Decision? Yes. But Not So Fast on Obama's Climate Leadership
Obama took the occasion of the Keystone announcement to tout his
administration's environmental track record—but should rejection of this
one project be allowed to overshadow his adminstration's numerous
shortcomings when it comes to climate?
"America is leading on climate change by working with other big
emitters like China to encourage and announce new commitments to reduce
harmful greenhouse gas emissions," Obama said, adding that "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."
However, Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline comes only months after he
approved
offshore drilling in the Arctic, an affront to climate activists and a
near-fatal blow to vulnerable communities and marine life that was only
avoided when Royal Dutch Shell
called off its exploration project in September.
Through his presidency, Obama has repeatedly been criticized for
bragging that he has expanded domestic oil and gas production, and
critics say
his "all-of-the-above" energy strategy proves
he simply does not understand the dangers posed by runaway climate
change nor the urgency needed for a rapid and just transition to
renewables.
As climate experts have pointed out ahead of the United Nations-sponsored
COP21
talks in Paris, beginning later this month, the U.S. is far from a
leader in climate action and is one of several wealthy nations that is
not meeting its potential to reduce greenhouse gases. Though it has historically been the planet's leading polluter, the U.S. under Obama has continued
to evade its financial obligations to help developing countries deal with the immediate impacts of global warming.
Then there's the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation agreement and "
corporate power grab nightmare"
that Obama has pushed for strongly even as experts warn the deal is an
absolute "nightmare" when it comes to environment and, in fact, never
even mentions the term "climate change."
In The Shadow of KXL, A Troubling Network of Pipelines, Oil Trains, and Climate Denial
As
Common Dreams has
reported extensively,
the fight over Keystone XL has not prevented the fossil fuel and
pipeline industries on both sides of the U.S./Canada border from
aggressively—if quietly—planning, proposing, and building a network of
infrastructure projects that collectively "dwarf" KXL in their capacity.
"While the Obama White House Keystone XL
decision has been touted by most environmentalists and criticized by Big
Oil and its front groups, the truth is much more complex and indeed,
dirty." —Steve Horn, DeSmogBlogFrom the "zombie-like"
Northern Gateway pipeline that refuses to die in western Canada to the massive eastward proposal known "
Energy East,"
the major pipeline companies in Canada continue to show their
determination in upping the nation's ability to transport their vast
reserves of dirty oil. In addition to the those larger and well-known
projects, there are numerous others that continue to threaten
communities and the climate across Canada.
In the U.S., a
vast network consisting of thousands of miles of new pipelines has been built
in recent years. As Steve Horn, a freelance investigative journalist who writes for
DeSmogBlog,
said on Friday: "While the Obama White House Keystone XL decision has
been touted by most environmentalists and criticized by Big Oil and its
front groups, the truth is much more complex and indeed, dirty. That's
because for years behind the scenes the Obama Administration has quietly
been approving hundreds of miles-long pieces of pipeline owned by
pipeline company goliath Enbridge."
And Daphne Wysham, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the
Center for Sustainable Economy in Washington state, added, "The Pacific
Northwest is facing the carbon equivalent of five Keystone XL pipelines
in the form of coal, gas, and oil via rail and pipeline."
Meanwhile, the exponential growth of oil-by-rail has become an area
of serious concern for environmentalists and community members who have
done their best to squelch the
false argument that we must choose between the inevitable destruction of a pipeline disaster or the wreckage of the next firey oil train derailment.
As Stephen Kretzmann, of Oil Change International,
told Common Dreams
in 2013, "There is no use talking about the best way to transport a
product which climate science tells us shouldn't even be being
produced... It's like debating whether or not menthol or regular
cigarettes are worse for you. They both kill, and that's the point."
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