I guess Bill McKibben’s protests and arrests against US approval of a pipeline to allow dirty Canadian tar sand oil to flow to the United States appears to be all for naught, according to the NY Times:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast, saying the project would provide a secure source of energy without significant damage to the environment.
In reaching its conclusion that the Keystone XL pipeline from the oil sands deposits in Alberta would have minimal environmental impact, the administration dismissed criticism from environmental advocates, who said that extracting the oil would have a devastating impact on the climate and that a leak or rupture in the 36-inch-diameter pipeline could wreak ecological disaster. Opponents also said the project would prolong the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, threaten sensitive lands and wildlife and further delay development of clean energy sources.
Woohoo! Access to and production of oil from the second largest deposit of carbon on the planet (next to Saudi Arabia) available for pumping into the ever more CO2 endowed atmosphere of earth is now almost certain to be approved by the Obama administration. Change Big Oil can believe in, at least. So does this mean we will stop off shore drilling in the Gulf and proposals for drilling in the Arctic? I wouldn’t bet on it.
By the way, tar sand oil production is up to 10 times dirtier than drilling in the North Sea. It looks like we have found the enemy and it is us, as Pogo said so eloquently decades ago:
In 2008, Royal Dutch Shell examined two possible energy scenarios for an oil-dependent civilization. One (“Blueprint”) envisioned radical reductions in GHGs, conservation and clean energy. The other (“Scramble”) explored what would happen if companies and countries exploited unconventional fuels without clear conservation goals or effective climate change action.
Shell’s “Scramble” scenario painted a bleak global future: “. . . international discussion on
climate change becomes bogged down in an ideological ‘dialogue of the deaf,’” and CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions “grow relentlessly.” Civil societies experience both climate and energy insecurity, and face “expensive consequences beyond 2050.” Powerful water and carbon lobbies protest unconventional fuel development. Canada’s rapid development of the tar sands has primed the global community for a volatile scramble on energy and climate.In turn, the Canadian government, the No. 1 financial benefactor of tar sands development, has obstructed energy conservation at home and effective international climate change action. […]
If exploitation of the tar sands continues unabated, by 2020 it could produce more GHGs than either Austria, Portugal, Ireland or Denmark. The project’s CO2 output could even rival or exceed that of Belgium, a nation of 10 million people. Emissions from the tar sands currently
[2009] exceed those of several European nations including Estonia and Lithuania. Climate
changing gases from two major mining operations now dwarf the emissions of Cyprus and Malta. […]Due to their extreme energy intensity, the tar sands have a higher carbon footprint than any other commercial oil product on the planet. The dirtiest projects burn extreme volumes of natural gas to create steam to melt oil out the ground. These in situ, or steam plants, now use four times more natural gas than mining operations. Some projects are now 10 times dirtier than production of oil in the North Sea.
Those if us who thought the adminsitration would work to reduce carbon emissions just got the Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh response to our pleas not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
No Steven, you’re wrong. He’s the Greatest Progressive President Ever.
And even if you’re right it doesn’t matter because the GOP is worse, so we have to act enthused and donate all our time and money again to Obama in 2012.
Screw the planet. What’s important is that the President has a “D” by his name.
I’m sure Plouffe will say this is really a genius ploy to win over independents….somehow.
As I understand the theory independents hate conflict and prefer candidates who are “above the fray” and “reach across the aisle”. In fact, so I believe the theory goes, independents hold these values so dear that they’ll vote for the candidate who best demonstrates them under any circumstances … even if, for example, the candidate is an incumbent and the official U3 unemployment has been 9% or better for almost 4 years running … or if, for example, the government is proven useless in dealing with major pollution or emergency situations.
Of course, one alternate theory is that although a lot of people say they hate conflict they don’t actually vote in a way that rewards that. Kind of like how most people say they hate negative campaigning but still are swayed by it.
Another alternate theory is that independents are mostly partisans who prefer identities like “moderate”, “centrist”, and “independent” because they believe it sounds better.
And the best alternate theory is that none of this matters – what matters are primarily 1) economy and 2) right track/wrong track numbers. Given that the Fed just announced they will do NOTHING for the economy the next two years except to keep interest rates as close to zero as possible (where they have been for years, so this is not a boost) it’s pretty clear the economy will stink and the wrong track number will be dominant next November. So it’s quite a bet Obama and Plouffe are making.
But it’s all the fault of the professional left.
hope and change, Steven! Hope and change! Most progressive administration of our lifetime, perhaps in the history of the world!
three wars, civil liberties out the window, tar sand pipelines,drilling in the gulf, what more could you want?
oh, and lily ledbetter. that balances everything.
ps: you’re just a professional leftist, and you hate obama because he’s black. wanna cover all my bases.
hope and change, Steven! Hope and change! Most progressive administration of our lifetime, perhaps in the history of the world!
three wars, civil liberties out the window, tar sand pipelines,drilling in the gulf, what more could you want?
oh, and lily ledbetter. that balances everything.
ps: you’re just a professional leftist, and you hate obama because he’s black. wanna cover all my bases.
Man, please! If you knew how little the largest and most prominent environmental organizations with oil and gas people on their boards gave a damn about this issue you really would be crying yourself to sleep (7 day a week as opposed to 6).
Oh awesome! So because the Sierra Club is hypocritical — assuming your points are valid, which I frankly don’t care either way if they are — we should just SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!
Fucking disgrace. Almost the entire reason I supported him over Hillary was because of climate change.
This was approval by the State Department. Who do you think is Secretary of State?
If Obama wanted to stop it, he could. The arrests have been widespread enough to where he knows about it.
In any case, they’re both horrible. It’s not like I’m wishing I supported her instead like some other idiots.
Understood. But there’s plenty of people (I know you’re not one) who are still bitter HRC wasn’t the nominee because for whatever reason they think she’s more progressive. She’s not. Policy-wise, at various points they’ve both demonstrated progressive ideals, but those ideals are rarely reflected in actual policy decisions.
One of the first clues that Obama wouldn’t be the anti-war president so many people in 2008 convinced themselves he’d be was his appointment of the Senate Armed Service Committee’s “Madame Yes” to be his most prominent foreign policy hire.
I don’t think Obama has strayed from his campaign promises on the actual wars. On civil liberties, yes. But on Iraq and Afghanistan, and his general approach to international affairs? I think he’s kept his promises.
We’re still on a glidepath out of Iraq, basically on schedule.
We ramped up in Afghanistan, as promised, killed bin-Laden, and will now start drawing down.
The Libya intervention was the kind of intervention we should learn to expect from a post-Cold War Democrat. We’ll intervene where our national interests are not all that impacted on human rights grounds (predicate Kosovo).
We need to remember, still, that Obama did substantially better than Clinton in his first two years, and that he hasn’t used his setback in 2010 to push a Republican agenda the way Clinton did with welfare reform, and deregulation. He’s made a concession on budget slashing, but that wasn’t even a choice. We have to do it anyway, and he’s been good about keeping it in the out-years and protecting his priorities. He basically rolled Boehner in the Spring.
Heh, I didn’t have “disillusions” in general (just as Chomsky warned on the eve of the election when he told people in swing states to vote for him but without disillusions). I just thought he’d be able to get the health care bill through faster, thus leaving more room for other stuff. Oh well.
On the foreign policy avenue, he’s performing just exactly as I thought he would. Zero surprises whatsoever. Hmm, scratch that…I didn’t think he’d unilaterally go to war and call it a “not-war.” If he started any new wars whatsoever, I figured he’d get support from Congress and be forced to go along with it (like Iran). Whatever Obama’s failings in foreign policy, Congress is infinitely worse on the whole on those fronts (both the 111th and 112th).
But fair enough. I’ve seen plenty of those morons from FDL to TPM (although her biggest base seems to be Riverdaughter, Taylor Marsh, and TalkLeft). I don’t get what they’re on, but I’d like them to pass it along. Or help organize independent political movements that actually pass progressive change (something I hoped OFA would turn into…not some arm of the Democratic Party. So perhaps that’s another thing I should have expected).
Alas this was a State Department report – over the objections of EPA scientists. Looking at the management of State it’s clear that Obama and Clinton are both equally repugnant.
Sorry, both are equally the Greatest Progressives Ever ™. We should call that the “Lily Ledbetter Defense”.
Just remember:
Now go out there and donate and volunteer for Obama in 2012.
BUT OBAMA SAID THAT HE WOULDN’T POLITICIZE SCIENCE!!!
Yeah, and we’re to blame for believing him. As so many Obama defenders keep telling me, it was our own fault for imagining that he would pursue progressive policies — he’s clearly been a centrist all along, so we should have expected what we’ve gotten.
All those pre-election comments about things like indefinite detention and helping social security by eliminating the payroll tax ceiling and not politicizing science … well, those were things he said to get elected. You know, centrist stuff.
Yep, we’re to blame for believing we’d get anything other than what we got. Even if the Obama phrase “the Audacity to Hope” seems to imply otherwise, just keep in mind that was only an election ploy.
Yep, we sure got fooled when we were out there donating and volunteering in 2008. I’m kind of embarrassed about that fact when I meet people who I convinced to vote for Obama. The question is whether we’ll get fooled again.
I actually think there’s a lot of truth to this. Obama’s record as state legislator, US Senator, or presidential candidate was consistently that of a great orator whose actual policies were those of a corporate centrist. After eight years of Dubya, people heard what they wanted to hear. The same thing happened with Clinton in ’92 after 12 years of Reagan/Bush. But it hardly seems like that’s a defense of Obama; more like an explanation for why we’re screwed, with a choice in 2012 between what Republican policies would have looked like 20 years ago and flat-out insanity.
It’s interesting that in 1996 people were still saying we’d see the “real” (i.e., more progressive) Bill Clinton after his re-election. And while it’s true that his three worst betrayals (NAFTA, welfare reform, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996) were first term, he did not, in fact, become more progressive in his second four years. Very few people are making that claim about Obama this time around, suggesting that people are much more cynical about Obama.
That can’t be good for 2012, especially if there’s a Republican nominee whose base is a lot more fired up than anyone was for Dole. Obama has to still be considered the favorite, but there’s a clear path to the White House for an ideologue like Perry or Bachmann. Their negatives would be ferocious, but the combination of an awful economy, a disaffected base, and a general sense that all of DC, regardless of party, is the problem are a very, very potent and dangerous mix for Obama. As frustrating as lesser-of-two-evils is, in this case it’s by far Obama’s strongest case for reelection. And the actions of Obama himself have taken him down that road.
This is why Mike Gravel said he believed Obama to be the most dangerous in the Democratic Party. Not that I care on that sense — domestically he’d be no different than Clinton and he’s not nearly as hawkish as she is, so it’s clear who I’d want. But in the sense that Obama’s oratory in the wake of Shrub’s failure was infinitely dangerous because it set-up an era of change that Obama promised but would never come to fruition by his election. Of course he’s right and any sentient person paying attention to politics should know this. The problem is that most are not.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH9SbwSQCk4&feature=player_embedded
Should I kill myself now or tomorrow?
Killing yourself is reserved for people at IOZ or other nihilist blogs, ranger11.