Approving Keystone XL Pipeline Would Create Jobs and Lower Gas Prices

The most pressing United States environmental issue we face presently is the debate on the Alberta pipeline. The Alberta pipeline is a project in the works between Canada and the United States, in an effort to decrease our dependency on overseas, foreign imported oil. If approved, the pipeline would move 525,000 barrels a day of oil from the Alberta oilsands in southern Canada, down middle America to the Texas oil refineries. The pipeline would run through agricultural land, parks, rivers, and other important environmental territory. Many scientists and environmentalists agree that the Alberta pipeline would be an environmental disaster and essentially, “game over” for our ability to avoid climate catastrophe (Targeted News Service). Needless to say, the pipeline poses many threats to our environment and will affect our water sources, air quality, climate change, and our health. The Alberta pipeline should not be approved because it would promote our unsustainable dependency on oil, cause great harm to species and our land, and further expand the rift between man and nature.

In the United States alone, we use approximately twenty million barrels of oil a day. Not only is oil used to fuel our automobiles; it is also used in our pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics. The processes of global exploration, extraction, refining, transporting, and marketing petroleum products all encompass the oil industry. All aspects of the industry have countless detrimental effects on the environment. The oil industry has fueled the exploitation of a finite resource, and destroyed the environment simultaneously. It is an industry structured on capitalism and the need for profit, accumulation, and gain, regardless of environmental effects. The past nine years have been spent at war, because the United States is unwilling to tap into our own oil reserves. There has been no attempt to consume only in accordance to our needs, but only ‘green alternatives’ that promote progressive change, but do not address the true problem we face. The country has an unsustainable dependency on oil, and the industry will continue to exploit this resource and destroy the environment in the meantime.

The United States is obtaining pressure from Big Oil and the Chamber of Commerce, but should not be allowed to override thorough consideration of the dangerous consequences of the pipeline. Green America's director of strategic outreach, Fran Teplitz stated that, "Green America opposes construction of the pipeline due to the perils it presents for human health, the environment and climate change, as well as the tremendous setback the pipeline would mean for development of our domestic, renewable energy sector (Chattanooga Times Free Press)."

BG of AZ 1:37AM December 14, 2011

Tom Pyle is exactly that. A pile of republican BS

joe hill of MS 5:49PM October 30, 2011

Why build a pipeline to a Texas refinery? Just build a new refinery where the oil shale is at. Could it be that a pipeline gets the oil to Texas where it can then be put on the world market at the highest price? Just build the refinery where the oil is at and there is no need for a multi billion dollar pipeline. Problem solved.

Franz of KS 5:10AM October 13, 2011

It is unreal to me how many people just think that this pipeline is going to make money for anybody but the oil companies. Does anyone but a few investigate any facts on their own? The government doesn't help get this going because it will do our nation zero good, except to have to clean up another oil spill. Fossil fuels are not an answer to our economic debt. Kills me when people say how bad it is on their post on their 1000 dollar computers with their 700 dollar internet bills. Get real.

Jorda of NE 12:46PM September 27, 2011