Keystone XL Rallies

Last night rallies opposing the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline were held throughout the country. The pipeline, if all phases of the project are completed, will run from Hardisty, Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas and transport daily 830,000 gallons of heavy crude oil extracted from bitumen deposits in Canada. At least 100 spills are projected over the lifetime of the pipeline.

The rallies were called because the State Department released its final environmental impact statement (EIS) on Keystone on Friday (when news meant to be buried is usually released) and it was interpreted by most of the mainstream press to signal an approval of the pipeline by the Obama administration.

Secretary of State John Kerry is slated to make the call since Keystone crosses an international border, and then three months after that Obama will make the final decision; the Wall Street Journal reports that a final decision could come as early as this June.

The reason why the final EIS is being seen as a green light for the project is its conclusion that the dirty oil, absent Keystone, will find its way to market anyway by means of rail. Here's how Coral Davenport of the New York Times put it in this past Saturday's frontpage story:

The State Department released a report on Friday concluding that the Keystone XL pipeline would not substantially worsen carbon pollution, leaving an opening for President Obama to approve the politically divisive project. 

The department’s long-awaited environmental impact statement appears to indicate that the project could pass the criteria Mr. Obama set forth in a speech last summer when he said he would approve the 1,700-mile pipeline if it would not “significantly exacerbate” the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. Although the pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to the Gulf Coast, the report appears to indicate that if it were not built, carbon-heavy oil would still be extracted at the same rate from pristine Alberta forest and transported to refineries by rail instead.

Bill McKibben of 350.org and others pushed back on this reading, saying that ample evidence exists in the EIS to justify Obama blocking the project. This from a story, "Pipeline Opponents’ Hopes Now Rest Largely on Kerry," that appeared the same day by Sarah Wheaton and Coral Davenport:

Still, opponents of the pipeline found some encouragement in the report, in passages that subtly vindicated their warnings.

“This report today reflects some grudging movement,” said Bill McKibben of 350.org, a group that has made opposition to the pipeline its signature issue. 

Activists pointed to a line in the report contending that the “total direct and indirect emissions associated with the proposed project would contribute to cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions.” 

In a conference call with reporters, Mr. McKibben said, “This report gives President Obama everything he needs in order to block this project.”

I had RSVP'd to attend the rally last night at the Federal Building downtown. But in a display of weakness, which is a recurrent pattern with me when it comes to attending political gatherings, I opted instead to get some takeout food and go home. After an unusually mild January, the weather has turned cold again, dipping down into the mid-30s; plus, I was feeling a little sleep-deprived from listening to the street revelry following Seattle's Super Bowl victory on Sunday night.

Anyhow, I'm sure I was not the only one to no-show; an ill omen, I would think. Without a huge display of popular opposition, it is a safe bet that Obama will approve Keystone XL. Signs point in that diecrtion. A couple key Democrat Senate seats (oil politicians Begich of Alaska and Landrieu of Louisiana) and possibly control of the Senate apparently hang in the balance of a green light.

The danger of approving Keystone is more existential for Democrats. What is remarkable about the anti-Keystone campaign is the extent to which all the big, mainstream environmental organizations -- NRDC, Sierra Club, FOE, League of Conservation Voters -- are on board and actively mobilizing their memberships. If Obama goes ahead and approves the pipeline he will be doing so based upon the tried-and-true reasoning that all these people -- vital Democratic constituents -- will fall back into line with the next election. Why? Because they have nowhere else to turn. This has been the pattern for decades, not only for conservationists but for labor unionists as well.

But we are now entering into different territory. Planetary crisis is a reality of which people are mindful. Labor is dying, and so too apparently are the days when go-along-to-get-along rules at the big enviro groups.

Next steps? Massive direct action coupled with a third-party political movement.

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UPDATE: Here is a link to some Monday rally photos.

Joe Nocera's Oil Sands Sophistry

Before it vanishes forever from public memory, which hopefully will be soon, a few words of reproach for Joe Nocera's Tuesday column, How Not to Fix Climate Change. In it Nocera dismisses James Hansen, Bill McKibben, their campaign of civil disobedience designed to pressure Obama to block the Kelystone XL pipeline, even the idea that producing oil from tar sands would have much of an impact on the environment. As Nocera says, "And the climate change effects of tar sands oil are, all in all, pretty small."

The "pretty small" hyperlink included in the column online is to a Congressional Research Services report by Richard K. Lattanzio, "Canadian Oil Sands: Life-Cycle Assessments of Greenhouse Gas Emissions." A quick read of the report's summary reveals that, contrary to Nocera's assertion, the greenhouse gas emissions related to the production of oil from tar sands are not "pretty small":

A number of key studies in recent literature have expressed findings that the GHG [greenhouse gases] emissions intensities of Canadian oil sands crudes may be higher than those of other crudes imported, refined, and consumed in the United States. The studies identify two main reasons for the increase: (1) oil sands are heavier and more viscous than lighter crude oil types on average, and thus require more energy- and resource-intensive activities to extract; and (2) oil sands are compositionally deficient in hydrogen, and have a higher carbon, sulfur, and heavy metal content than lighter crude oil types on average, and thus require more processing to yield consumable fuels by U.S. standards.

And from the "Selected Findings from the Primary Published Studies" portion of the report here are two of the bullet points Lattanzio makes:

• discounting the final consumption phase of the life-cycle assessment (which can contribute up to 70%-80% of Well-to-Wheel emissions), Well-to-Tank (i.e., “production”) GHG emissions are, on average, 72%-111% higher for Canadian oil sands crude than for the weighted average of transportation fuels sold or distributed in the United States;

• the estimated effect of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on the U.S. GHG footprint would be an increase of 3 million to 21 million metric tons of GHG emissions annually (equal to the annual GHG emissions from the combustion of fuels in approximately 588,000 to 4,061,000 passenger vehicles).

Apparently Nocera didn't read the report; or if he did, he doesn't think that adding the greenhouse-gas equivalent of several million automobiles to the road is a big deal. Which brings us to the tendentious nature of Nocera's column. For how can his readers know if pouring extra greenhouse gas into the atmosphere is a big or a small deal if he never lets on what the climate scientists are saying? To read Nocera one would think that climate change is analogous to the federal budget deficit, a theoretical problem becoming potentially hazardous decades down the road. But then again we can't say for sure because he never tells us what he thinks climate change is and what is at stake if global temperature continues to rise.

For an excellent synopsis of what we're talking about when we talk about climate change, check out this month's Monthly Review and the "Review of the Month" by John Bellamy Foster, "James Hansen and the Climate-Change Exit Strategy." Here are the first two paragraphs:

The world at present is fast approaching a climate cliff. Science tells us that an increase in global average temperature of 2°C (3.6° F) constitutes the planetary tipping point with respect to climate change, leading to irreversible changes beyond human control. A 2°C rise is sufficient to melt a significant portion of the world’s ice due to feedbacks that will hasten the melting. It will thus set the course to an ice-free world. Sea level will rise. Numerous islands will be threatened along with coastal regions throughout the globe. Extreme weather events (droughts, storms, floods) will be far more common. The paleoclimatic record shows that an increase in global average temperature of several degrees means that 50 percent or more of all species—plants and animals—will be driven to extinction. Global food crops will be negatively affected. For example, a 2011 report of the National Resource Council indicates that the U.S. corn (maize) crop, which accounts for 40 percent of the world’s total, will experience a 25 percent decline in average yield with a 2°C rise in temperature. 

A 2°C increase in global average temperature is associated with the emission of about one trillion metric tons of cumulative carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution. A total of 566 billion metric tons of carbon have already been added to the atmosphere due to fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land cover change since 1750. This sets up a carbon budget—the remaining tons of carbon that can be released without reaching the trillion metric ton mark—of less than 500 billion metric tons. Based on the record of emission rates over the last two decades it is estimated by climate scientists at Oxford University (associated with the website trillionthtonne.org) that we will emit the one-trillionth metric ton in twenty-eight years (this reflects a recent recalibration of the methodology resulting in a two-year reduction in the estimated timeline). We could, it is calculated, avoid emitting the trillionth ton if we were to decrease carbon emissions from this point on by about 2.4 percent a year. A truly safe response would require a drop in carbon emissions at more than twice that rate. The longer we wait the steeper the reductions will need to be.

While McKibben and company rallied against Keystone XL in D.C. this past Sunday, the story making the rounds is that Obama was golfing in Florida with key players in the Texas oil and gas industry. Nocera probably would see nothing wrong with this. And maybe there is an explanation that isn't malign. Nonetheless I feel compelled to end this morning's post with Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain (Alternate Mix)":