Five years ago, the firm TransCanada submitted a permit request to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would bring tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project has sparked one of the most contentious environmental battles in decades. The Obama administration initially appeared ready to approve Keystone XL, but an unprecedented wave of activism from environmentalists and residents of the states along its path has forced several delays. In the summer of 2011, 1,200 people were arrested outside the White House.
Protests were held once again around the country in a national day of action urging President Obama to reject Keystone’s construction. President Obama also faces continued pressure from backers of the Keystone XL. In their latest push for the project, House Republicans have announced plans to tie the pipeline’s construction to the upcoming vote on raising the nation’s debt ceiling. Well, on Monday, delegates at the 2013 International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit that was held in Suffern, New York, called on Obama to reject the Keystone, saying, quote, “There is no single project in North America that is more significant than Keystone XL in terms of the carbon emissions it would unleash. … As women who are already seeing the tragic impacts of climate change on families, on indigenous peoples, and on entire countries, we urge you to choose a better future by rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.”
Tzeporah Berman talking;
The tar sands are the single largest industrial project on Earth. The scale is almost incomprehensible, if you’ve never been there. And they are not only the single reason that Canada’s climate pollution is going up, that we will not meet any of the targets, even the weak targets that have been set, but they’re also the most toxic project in the country. They’re polluting our water and our air. The tar sands produces 300 million liters of toxic sludge a day, that is just pumped into open-pit lakes that now stretch about 170 kilometers across Canada.
And, you know, one of the important things about what’s happening in Canada right now is that Canadian policy on climate change, on environment, on many issues, is being held hostage to the goal that this federal government, the Harper government, and the oil industry have of expanding the tar sands no matter what the cost. You know, oil corrodes. It’s corroding our pipelines and leading to spills and leaks that are threatening our communities, but it’s also corroding our democracy. What we’re seeing in Canada is the—literally, the elimination of 40 years of environmental laws in the last two years in order to make way for quick expansion of tar sands and pipelines. I mean, the Keystone is not the only pipeline this industry is proposing. It’s a spider web of pipelines across North America, so that they can try and expand this dirty oil as quickly as possible.
It’s really dirty because it’s—the oil is mixed with sand. So, in order to get that oil out, they have to use natural gas. More natural gas is used in the tar sands than all the homes in Canada. So, they use natural gas and freshwater to actually remove the oil from the sand, and the result is that each barrel of oil from the tar sands has three to four times more emissions, more climate pollution, than conventional oil.
this is an export pipeline. What the industry wants is, they want to get this oil off the continent, because they’ll get a better price. And so, all of the pipelines that are currently being proposed are in order so that the industry can export the oil. So, the Keystone, for example, will go all the way from Alberta straight down through the United States and out to the Gulf. And it’s not for U.S. consumption. The majority of that oil is destined to—you know, the U.S. is really just in the Canadian oil industry’s way. And the result is that this is a pipeline that is—presents enormous risk to the American people as a result of the terrible record of oil spills and leaks, and not a lot of benefit.
the government has shut down the majority of scientific research in the country that had to deal with climate change. This is a government in denial, and they do not want to talk about climate change. So, last year they shut down the atmospheric research station, which was one of the most important places in the world to get climate data. They shut down the National Round Table on Environment and Economy. They fired hundreds of scientists, and the ones that are left are being told that they can’t release their research to us, even though it’s taxpayers-funded research. They’re also being told that they can’t speak to the press unless they have a handler and it’s an approved interview; they have to have a handler from the prime minister’s office.
So the scientists that I’ve talked to are—they’re embarrassed, they’re frustrated, they’re protesting. Last week in Canada, we had hundreds of scientists hit the streets in their lab coats protesting the federal government, because they can’t speak. They’re being muzzled—you know, to the extent that the, you know, quiet eminent journal Nature last year published an editorial saying it’s time for Canada to set its scientists free.
Most of the scientists that I’m talking to in Canada can’t speak to the media at all. And if they want to talk about climate change, they’re definitely not going to get those interviews approved. But it’s not just the scientists that are being muzzled and the climate research that’s being shut down and people that are being fired. We’ve also seen an unprecedented attack on charitable organizations that deal with environmental research. The Canadian government has the majority of environmental organizations under Canadian revenue audit, and so the result is you have the majority of the country’s environmental leaders not able to be a watchdog on what the government is doing.
And secret documents reveal, through freedom of information this year, show that the government eliminated all these environmental laws in Canada at the request of the oil industry, because the environmental laws were in their way. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline crosses a thousand streams, and those—that would normally trigger an environmental assessment process. Well, when you have no laws, you have no environmental assessment. So when they eradicated all the environmental laws, 3,000 environmental assessments for major industrial projects in Canada were canceled. Now those projects are just approved without environmental assessment.
Dr. Hansen has referred to the Keystone XL pipeline as the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet. And he says that his studies are showing that if we allow the tar sands to expand at the rates that the government and industry want it to expand, then it’s game over for the planet.
One night at dinner, my son, who was eight at the time, turned to me and said, “Mommy, why does the government think you’re a terrorist?” Which is not really the conversation you want to have with your son. Because he had heard on the radio that on the Senate floor, the Harper government was proposing that we change the definition of the term “domestic terrorism” in Canada to include environmentalism.
Canadians who care about these issues are under attack by our own government, and we’re being told that if we—that what we do is not in the national interest, unless we support the oil industry’s agenda. But I think this government has overreached, and we are now finding—you know, our phones are ringing off the hook. People are joining the campaign and stepping up. And let’s be clear: Canadians want clean energy. Canadians, many of them, are very embarrassed about what our government is doing internationally, so our movement is growing. And so far, we have slowed down all of these pipelines and the expansion.
the alternative for Canada is not only clean energy, renewable energy, which now we can build at scale—we know that—but it’s also supporting other aspects of our economy, because when you support only one aspect of your economy, the most capital-intensive sector in the country, then it starts to destroy your manufacturing base, your service industry, your tourism industry. We need a diversified economy in Canada, and that’s not—and that’s entirely possible.
– source democracynow.org
Tzeporah Berman, a leading environmental activist who has campaigned in Canada for decades around clean energy and is the former co-director of Greenpeace International’s Climate Unit. She is now focused on stopping tar sands extraction and building new oil pipelines. Berman is also the co-founder ForestEthics and the author of This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge.
Please reduce oil consumption.