As progressives we need to understand how to change playing rules to use Market forces to our advantage. Simply attempting to block market forces is a losing game. CHannel the forces where you want them to go, because if you attempt to dam them back, they will simply overflow the banks and find a new path to meet demand. But I am not making a neoliberal economic argument.

I am getting at why this anti development framing is nonsense. It is not that the US is against any fossil fuels. We are against extraction of the energy in fossil fuels that has the hidded cost of destroying our cities and turning our farmlands into deserts.

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Can US technology be used to extracts the carbon from those tar sands so the CO2 doesn't go into the atmosphere? You bet.

You know what the biggest source of clean burning hydrogen is? Natural Gas. And we are sitting on a Saudi America of it. We already know how to crack off that Carbon and put it back in the ground where it can do no harm. That is a formula for a booming energy economy based on clean energy. But the Oil industry has no incentive to do that. We need to make it be in their interest.

As for the Tar sands oil? It is a Canadian resource and we must deal with the fact that market forces will find a path for that oil to meet global demand. We must help the Canadians make the right choices.

Internationally, we need to tax products based on the carbon economy. This means that if Canada is exporting a major source of Carbon into global markets, that there is a Carbon tariff on imports into the US economy that is proportionate to that addition of Carbon.

We need to reward Canada, China and India for making the right decisions with regard to CO2 production.

Until we connect those economic dots, and there are only upside economic benefits to growth in CO2 production, guess what. That's right- the CO2 increase into the atmosphere will continue to skyrocket.

Just as it has during the Presidency of Barack Obama. What he did- What we do as citizens- will be our legacy for the history books. Because what we do now will be felt for millennia. Because that's how long this surge of CO2 in the atmosphere will last. Besides the starvation and sea level rises, it will mean enormous wars as populations are displaced in search of scarce farmlands and water resources. Deaths in the hundreds of millions.

The blood will be on the hands of this generation.

No, what needs to be done is make it clear to President Spineless Pushover that if he approves Keystone XL -- for which there is no excuse -- then Democrats will stay home in 2014 and resume fighting in 2016.

Obama very much wants a Democratic in 2014. We need to tell him he's not going to get it if he screws over his supporters yet again.

Disgusted: Please let us in on the value of making a political threat of "staying home" in 2014, for any single issue. We get you don't like Obama, but whats the value that progressive people can expect from sitting out an election, some sort of revenge? You think it's a positive if we act like Teabaggers and make a bunch of idle threats, or do you seriously cede everything to the right wing because of one pipeline?

Disgusted: I meant the framing of the opposition- There is no question that Keystone XL should be blocked.

• Keystone should not be approved until the refineries in the US are required to sequester the carbon out of the tar sand oil. This is not as science fiction as it sounds. Cracking this carbon out of the oil is an exothermic reaction and this basically turns refineries into power generation plants. Situated near geologic formations suitable for permanent sequestration of the CO2 extracted, these refineries could be up and running within 6 years. We know how to do this, there just is no economic incentive to do it.
• Here is how I answer the neoliberal economic objection that Canada would simply build a pipeline to its own ports and export Tar Sand oil and thereby do nothing to prevent Carbon release into the atmosphere: A Carbon Tariff would bring heavy trade consequences down on Canada, and so the more she exported in CO2 energy, the more costly her goods would be in the US.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I was making the case for using market forces, and this sometimes implies an attitude of accommodation of the oil industry when in fact the objective is to radically alter their behavior. And that is radical with a capital R, employing Carbon taxes, carbon tariffs and sequestration.

The hell with the republicans. That is the only reason the pipeline should be built for the benefit of the US.

Not even, you guys. Have you heard the news today that, on the second anniversary of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the radiation in parts of the Fukushima nuclear plant are too hot to even enter, much less clean up? People are still in temporary housing, with no end in sight. And what's going on with the BP Gulf oil spill? Hearings to determine how many billions BP still owes to mitigate environmental devastation and it will never be enough.

The tar sands product is too thick to flow through a pipe, so chemicals are added to thin it; and the whole toxic mixture will create irreparable damage when the pipe eventually leaks. Can't even clean it up, much less return the environment to its previous state. If we learn one lesson from the sad succession of environmental disasters that affect the little guy worst, it should be that the rich folks don't care. They just get richer, and too bad for everyone else.

No the time to stop this is now, before we read about another heartbreaking blot on the land. Crank up the alternative energy R&D and give this one a pass. Please.

1. It's Canadian Oil, not US oil.
2. Allowing it to be extracted only for distribution in the US will not mean markedly lower prices. Nothing will force suppliers to bid anything more than one dollar lower that an offshore supplier's best price. So they won't.
3. If Opec shut of their oil, would we still refuse to ship overseas to our trade partners? Doubtful. So our economy would be hammered as pump prices doubled or tripled.

So much for the energy independence argument. Real independence can be achieved if the world moves to technologies like solar or wind whose supply no minority of countries can possibly control.
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The only sane move is for Canada to capitalize on this wealth only when it does not come at the cost of the destruction of global climate stability.

Not to mention the southwest is entering a dry period that may be a few hundred years, like the last time, not to mention the middle of the country (where so many crops are grown) is still experiencing water shortage.

It's like the city of Albuquerque approving a computer chip factory, that needed to use 20% of the water in the Rio Grande, and the Rio Grande has been in a low-water condition for the past 40 years.

In fact, as my father who used to work for the Bureau of Reclamation always enjoyed pointing out, all of the water compacts in the West were written in the 1920s, when the water supply was in a 500-year high. If all the parties to the Colorado River Compact took all the water the compact allows, they would need 280% of what is now available. There's a reason why the West was so largely uninhabited when Europeans first came exploring.

To your point, bflynch, it's not even that drinking bottled water would be the solution. When you shower, the toxic chemicals sit on your skin, and of course, there's no washing them off. Watering your vegetables would also introduce toxins into your food. Pretty soon, everyone for miles around has cancer.

This idea that profiteers dash in and grab what they can, leaving the rest of us to wonder how we got bamboozled, has to stop somewhere. Don't be fooled.

Well if everyone stopped driving their SUVs and MiniVans, then the "theiving oilcos" would not have to abuse the planet as much. Most Americans pretty much want the convenience of their vehicles without worrying about the realities of how the gas gets from the planet to them. Not to mention the 2 or 3 BILLION new drivers that will be coming online in China and India and other developing nations. No matter what we do here, the planet will suffer there. And I highly doubt the Chinese have very strict environmental rules regarding oil production.

I DO hope the folks in the photo above carpooled. :)

See my post above. Also, we need to find a way for the dripping-with-cash oil companies to pay for the inevitable damage that fracking will cause. It isn't fair to burden individual citizens with the cost of what economists refer to as "spillover effects" or "negative externalities."

Do you think those companies would be so willing to build the pipeline if they had to put billions in escrow (and/or post bonds) to compensate individuals and communities as part of the cost of approval? I'm guessing that the answer to that is "No."

We in southern California could start by ending the "English garden" fantasy that is based on an environment where there is precipitation 300 days a year. We could also start requiring drip irrigation rather than spraying water. It would be possible to save 50% of the water Los Angeles steals, er I mean uses, without a major change in public lifestyle.

Agreed. I grew up not that far from L.A. I am in Northern CA now. We do get more precipitation than So. Cal.

I have seen it, people hosing off driveways, patios and other stuff. It's a way of life, we love our cars and we can conserve resources. We especially need to our conserve water.

I called a hotel/restaurant where I was staying to notify their planter strips (yes- strips in a parking lot) were flowing for hours, overflowing down the parking lot into the sewer/flood control. They didn't prioritize it with some excuse of not knowing where to turn it off. Well, how high does the bill need to go before it is a priority?

That has to stop. They have to stop wasting water like that and a drip system would be a good start. I've also seen the irrigation on the freeways shooting into the air. Broken sprinklers. I have had drip system breakage and react immediately when I know of it.

I called Another few hours later and sprinklers remained on for at least 24 hours!

http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/monthly_precip.php

I worked for the State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Rights, before I retired. The farmers in the San Joaquin Valley generally have contracts with a water district or irrigation district to deliver water to them, but the farmers themselves do not hold the water rights. In fact, many of the water districts are also contractors, usually with the federal Bureau of Reclamation (which built the Central Valley Project) or the California Department of Water Resources (which built the State Water Project). The Bureau and the Department hold the water right permits. But if there is not enough water to satisfy senior water right holders, the more junior water right holders will be cut off. That's what happens in drought years. The contracts for water held by the farmers and the various water districts are NOT water rights. It's rather complicated. Water rights in California are usufructary (i.e., use) rights, not ownership rights to the water.

Thank you for that! I travel down I-5 at least 2 times a year and see the signs at the farms. They are very political (blaming Democrats/Congress) about it and try to convince people that they "should" have the water, because they provide food and jobs. Well, that is all well and good, but we cannot overlook there's no right for them to have it.

Thanks again.

The article says

Given its carbon content, tar sands oil should be among the first fossil fuels we decide to leave alone.

It does not say we are running out of fossil fuels;

IIt's about the pollution. We have CLEANER ways of doing the same things.

If I lived in those areas where pipeline wants to go, I would be very concerned about the pollution and using clean water and energy for tar sands pipeline.

After mining, the tar sands are transported to an extraction plant, where a hot water process separates the bitumen from sand, water, and minerals. The separation takes place in separation cells. Hot water is added to the sand, and the resulting slurry is piped to the extraction plant where it is agitated. The combination of hot water and agitation releases bitumen from the oil sand, and causes tiny air bubbles to attach to the bitumen droplets, that float to the top of the separation vessel, where the bitumen can be skimmed off. Further processing removes residual water and solids. The bitumen is then transported and eventually upgraded into synthetic crude oil.

See the Photos page for additional photos of tar sand processing facilities.

About two tons of tar sands are required to produce one barrel of oil. Roughly 75% of the bitumen can be recovered from sand. After oil extraction, the spent sand and other materials are then returned to the mine, which is eventually reclaimed. In-situ production methods are used on bitumen deposits buried too deep for mining to be economically recovered. These techniques include steam injection, solvent injection, and firefloods, in which oxygen is injected and part of the resource burned to provide heat. So far steam injection has been the favoured method. Some of these extraction methods require large amounts of both water and energy (for heating and pumping)

ostseis.anl.gov/guide/tarsands/index.cfm Search PEIS-this is not a link.

Here is one that works better http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/npr_oil_shale_program.html

The denial of TPubs of the actual thing being debated is the hoodwinking.

http://www.ostseis.anl.gov/