Politic?

This is a blog dedicated to a personal interpretation of political news of the day. I attempt to be as knowledgeable as possible before commenting and committing my thoughts to a day's communication.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Will He? Will He Not?

Official Canada is in a tizzy of misapprehension. Much depends on how U.S. President Barack Obama decides his environment file.

Not that it is any longer an electoral issue, well into his second mandate. A point of honour, perhaps, to be addressed. On the one hand, rising to the expectations of a core group of excitable environmentalists for whom strangely enough foreign-imported energy represents hysteria, but not the far outdistanced carbon footprint of an outmoded energy source extracted at home.

The president of all Americans must debate with himself and his executive advisers on the ethical feasibility of turning down the prospective Keystone XL pipeline. Which has been the topic of great condemnation, but then all American presidents, and this one is no exception, are plagued with lobbying demands and protective impulses and the need to fulfill international obligations while ensuring the security of energy supplies availability to make certain that nothing interrupts the agenda of the U.S. in furthering its economy.

Was it an inadvertent slip of the tongue, that passing reference to Alberta "tarsands" having to pass yet another test of environmental health? After all, they were named that at a time when it hardly seemed worthwhile to extract and develop that resource. Now that extraction methodology and environmental concerns are being placated by new technologies coming on the scene, they have long since been re-named Alberta "oilsands", nicely white-washing a derogation.

On the other hand, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences came into the picture by releasing a study finding that diluted bitumen was in fact no more of a risk to transport than any other type of oil. The headline on the New York Times edition that released the results of the study read: "Scientists Find Canadian Oil Safe for Pipelines, but Critics Say Questions Remain."

An environmental impact study was already released by the U.S. State Department, concluding "that the net impact of the pipeline on the climate would be small, because even if it was not built, the oil would still be extracted and sold in other markets". The impact on the environment is all Canada's. And it represents a mere 0.16% of all the Greenhouse Gas emissions globally. As for the environmental impact within Canada, that would be 7.8%.

Compare that to the 40% in the United States that the coal-fired electricity industry alone represents. Try shutting down that domestic power source. Try squaring off against that powerful lobby. Come to think of it, why doesn't the environmental lobby go head-to-head with the coal lobby? That kind of encounter might even persuade the coal-energy producers to clean up their act.

As Alberta already has done as the first government on the continent to require industry to reduce GHG emissions - putting a price on carbon in the process.

Questions, anyone?

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