Permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to be canceled on Biden's first day

[Sbane]

It will be so good that America's President finally takes climate change seriously again, and he can lead the world rather than being left behind.

Can you explain how this helps with climate change? It just makes it more likely the oil at Cushing and other major terminals in Texas will be either domestic or from Venezuela/gulf states. It does not lower the amount of consumption of gasoline.

Innovation is the only thing that will solve the climate crisis. Actions like this only help liberals feel good about themselves while driving their eco-boost! Ford Explorer back to their 4 bd house that is nice and balmy while it is freezing outside.

[Sbane]

As a method of transporting oil and gas, pipelines are the most ecologically sound.

Oh wow, do you really think this makes your case? You got any actual data to back it up or just a couple more cherry picked photos?

While the right is out of touch with reality on most issues, this is one where the left is completely out of touch with reality.

[Sbane]

As a method of transporting oil and gas, pipelines are the most ecologically sound.

Oh wow, do you really think this makes your case? You got any actual data to back it up or just a couple more cherry picked photos?

While the right is out of touch with reality on most issues, this is one where the left is completely out of touch with reality.

What a strangely angry response to a simple piece of evidence that this specific oil pipeline that we are discussing has already inflicted serious damage to a local ecosystem.

I'll admit that I initially provided zero context for the photo, but it comes as no surprise that this is the first time many of you are seeing it.  It was big news at the time to anybody who gave a sh**t.

You posted this picture in response to a factual statement by True Federalist. If you disagree with his assertion that pipelines are the most ecologically sound way to move oil, prove it. This picture is certainly not proof. Train crashes happen. Truck accidents definitely happen. Pipelines are the best way to move oil and gas. If oil and gas is extracted from the earth, we need pipelines to move it.

Of course, the real goal is to stop oil and gas production and going after pipelines is just an assbackwards way of going about it. Invent technologies that make oil and gas obsolete if that is your true goal. Of course that is much harder to do than standing in front of a pipeline construction site and screaming your lungs out.

[Sbane]

You posted this picture in response to a factual statement by True Federalist. If you disagree with his assertion that pipelines are the most ecologically sound way to move oil, prove it. This picture is certainly not proof. Train crashes happen. Truck accidents definitely happen. Pipelines are the best way to move oil and gas. If oil and gas is extracted from the earth, we need pipelines to move it.

I don't care what the "most ecologically sound" method of moving oil is, frankly.  As UncleSam aptly put it earlier in this thread, oil pipelines being the safest method of transport is the same as saying that hypodermic needles are the safest way to take heroin.

But moreover, imagine casually defending the relative safety of pipelines in a thread dedicated to discussing a specific pipeline that has already spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ecosystem.

Of course, the real goal is to stop oil and gas production

Agreed.

and going after pipelines is just an assbackwards way of going about it. Invent technologies that make oil and gas obsolete if that is your true goal. Of course that is much harder to do than standing in front of a pipeline construction site and screaming your lungs out.

You can do both, you know.  I've invested what little I can into green-energy research, and also donated some supplies to the Standing Rock community during the midst of the assault on their reservation in late 2016.

Thank you for acknowledging reality. Unfortunately, we don't have the technologies present today to immediately transition 100% to renewable energy. Thus, in the meantime our real choice is whether we want to produce oil and gas here in North America, or get it from dictatorships and terrorist sympathizers. Oil will continue to be used by Americans in the short term whether or not we build more pipelines. Stopping pipeline construction does nothing to advance your goal.

[Sbane]

It will be so good that America's President finally takes climate change seriously again, and he can lead the world rather than being left behind.

Can you explain how this helps with climate change? It just makes it more likely the oil at Cushing and other major terminals in Texas will be either domestic or from Venezuela/gulf states. It does not lower the amount of consumption of gasoline.

Sure. Domestic/Venezuelan/Gulf gas is way, way better for the environment than obscenely dirty tar sands oil. Everybody knows we're going to use oil in the 2020s, but we can at least not use tar sands oil. It's like the difference between anthracite and lignite coal. If we must use coal, using the former exclusively would least be less bad.

And this is a reasonable argument for stopping this specific pipeline. Also, this particular pipeline isn't even that important now in any case. I am more concerned that this will become a pattern of behavior where environmentalists protest every single pipeline being built.

Also, as someone who lives in an area with lots of oil and gas production, let me just tell you that production doesn't stop when there aren't enough pipelines. Rather it starts getting transported by more dangerous means such as road or rail.

[Sbane]

Also, the independence from the Saudi argument doesn't work anymore, USA produces like 95% of its use already.

Well, even if you count Canada as part of American oil that's not entirely true as quite a bit of oil flows into the US and then goes out as finished product.   But, yes the Keystone XL was important to Albertan oil interests but not so much to the US. 

And this is a great point as well. This is good politics by Biden as he gets to fulfill a leftist dream on day one (so the rest of us forget by election time) and hurt very few Americans by doing it.

[Sbane]

You posted this picture in response to a factual statement by True Federalist. If you disagree with his assertion that pipelines are the most ecologically sound way to move oil, prove it. This picture is certainly not proof. Train crashes happen. Truck accidents definitely happen. Pipelines are the best way to move oil and gas. If oil and gas is extracted from the earth, we need pipelines to move it.

I don't care what the "most ecologically sound" method of moving oil is, frankly.  As UncleSam aptly put it earlier in this thread, oil pipelines being the safest method of transport is the same as saying that hypodermic needles are the safest way to take heroin.

But moreover, imagine casually defending the relative safety of pipelines in a thread dedicated to discussing a specific pipeline that has already spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ecosystem.

Of course, the real goal is to stop oil and gas production

Agreed.

and going after pipelines is just an assbackwards way of going about it. Invent technologies that make oil and gas obsolete if that is your true goal. Of course that is much harder to do than standing in front of a pipeline construction site and screaming your lungs out.

You can do both, you know.  I've invested what little I can into green-energy research, and also donated some supplies to the Standing Rock community during the midst of the assault on their reservation in late 2016.

Thank you for acknowledging reality. Unfortunately, we don't have the technologies present today to immediately transition 100% to renewable energy. Thus, in the meantime our real choice is whether we want to produce oil and gas here in North America, or get it from dictatorships and terrorist sympathizers. Oil will continue to be used by Americans in the short term whether or not we build more pipelines. Stopping pipeline construction does nothing to advance your goal.

The thing is, you barely get any more dictatorships anymore. USA is on the verge of producing enough for itself and USA+Canada is already producing more than USA needs.

Yes, I know that, but the market for oil is global. The more that is produced by North America, the less money that goes to Venezuela, Russia and the Gulf. We should export oil to other countries if we can produce more than what we need.