The Speech Obama Should Give On Keystone XL
By Bill Henderson
02 May, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Good morning ladies and gentleman, beautiful Spring day.
Today I am announcing my Administration's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada proposes to build to carry oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas. My administration has carefully studied the environmental and economic impacts that are to be expected from this project. Because this pipeline crosses our border with Canada the final decision whether to permit or not is my Administration's decision, not a Congressional decision.
Economically, Keystone XL is not a very important decision for Americans: the jobs and wealth creation estimated to be created by construction, operation, and the increase in refining in Texas would certainly help in our recovery, but the jobs and dollars from this pipeline are not significant and would have only a very minimal impact on the broader economy.
Environmentally, my Administration still has concerns about the impacts of possible spills on sensitive areas of the new pipeline path, possible spills of bitumen that could effect sensitive aquifers that Nebraskans and other Americans in the Mid-West are dependent upon. But pipeline technology is improving and TransCanada has promised the most up to date, state of the art safety framework, and if it was only local pollution concerns, we think that, all thing considered, the pipeline should go ahead.
But I'm not here today to announce that a permit will be given for Keystone XL construction. I'm here today to tell you that my Administration will not permit Keystone XL because this pipeline is not in the long term interest of Americans.
As 'Team Leader' of my Democrats I know that to not permit Keystone could alienate the energy businesses that are very powerful in our present politics and that this decision could be a body blow to my party, especially Democrats running in fossil fuel industry dominated areas. But my government is not going to OK Keystone because the climate science is clear: bitumen - and coal - must stay in the ground. We are also reviewing options for curtailing coal production for domestic use and for export.
Why? Because the climate science is clear; especially the carbon budget science that activist Bill McKibben has been popularizing: these fossil fuels must stay in the ground until we have the technology to use them without producing even more greenhouse gas emissions.
For too long we haven't been responsible about the building climate change problem that threatens everything we care for and love and especially our children's very future. As President, faced with the iron law that climate policy can not even minimally effect present economic well being, facing a Congress that refuses to be responsible about climate change, and in tough economic times where Americans needed my government's economic leadership, I've had to choose to focus upon what was possible, what was possible for my Administration in helping Americans today. But climate change grows more serious every day. I look at my kids; I recognize how little time remains for needed change.
Keystone has become a line in the sand - it was just a pipeline project to carry bitumen to refineries in Texas, but now it has become a decision on how we govern ourselves and our future. This decision can't be about just jobs and energy company investments today. We owe due diligence to future generations. So, acting responsibly, considering all the information gathered about this project, we are saying this pipeline project should not be permitted and I hope Americans will understand and welcome this small step forward in coming to terms with the climate change threat that we must address.
As President I have been repeatedly briefed on climate change. Unlike the opinions expressed in newspaper columns and by TV commentators, the science in these briefings has always been clear: there is a wide scientific consensus, climate change is happening; it is caused by our use of fossil fuels and the temperature is rising; extreme weather is happening at a pace that can only be explained statistically by increased warming; the Arctic ice cap is melting with sinister implications for Americans.
There is a scientific consensus that is undeniable. I have never seen a report in these briefings that contradicted this consensus and to sum up these briefings: climate change is happening; the impacts on our kids, on future generations of Americans for centuries, are predicted to be dire, catastrophic.
Not what you read? Not the climate change is a hoax or climate change isn't a big problem news that you get from TV? The briefings I get from our military concerning the impacts of climate change for Americans are the most sobering. Google US military and climate change if you are skeptical and become informed about how our armed forces assess the climate risks: the threats from failed states, failed economies, failed agriculture - climate change promises ever increasing instability as chaotic weather and factors like sea level rise and ocean acidification pound weaker, more vulnerable nations globally.
Ultimately Americans have the most to lose - we can probably adapt, at least for a time, but failing states and failing economies, not to mention failing ecosystems, forests and crops, will endanger the global economy we are dependent upon and then probably our ability to sustain an economy, an advanced society, even in our rich and technologically powerful America.
I look at my kids - and you should consider your kids and grandkids as you listen to me - when I read that some pessimistic but highly informed climate scientists predict that by mid-century, when my girls are my age, hopefully with their own families, climate change damage will be so severe that only one in ten people alive then are expected to survive.
I was shown a clip of James Hansen interviewed about Keystone explaining climate inertia and how our emissions today will effect our children's world. Canada wants to triple oilsands production when we should be taking every step possible to reduce emissions.
We greatly benefit from the production and use of fossil fuels today but the predicted - hard science - consequences fall on innocents in the future. We have failed to act responsibly to reduce emissions for at least two decades - four decades if you go back to the prescient climate science in a report by President Lyndon Johnson's Science Advisory Committee in 1965.
As President I'm very much constrained in what I can do about this building global scale problem. I can't force other countries to reduce their emissions. I can't say to the Prime Minister of Canada: you must close down your polluting oilsands.
I am unfortunately very much constrained about what I can do to even reduce American emissions. I would need to have the co-operation of Congress and the co-operation of the wider American society, in particular America's business community, to make the deep structural changes that are now necessary after these decades of inaction; structural changes to reduce emissions of a scale needed. I would love to have their co-operation to make the changes necessary to rapidly advance to a post fossil fuel economy.
Today I can only make a symbolic small step and refuse to permit more fossil fuel infrastructure - the Keystone XL pipeline - that will lead to burning more fossil fuels. Today I can only promise that my Administration will try and use our remaining time to do what we can do to reduce emissions, here at home and internationally - we did just reach a co-operation on climate treaty with China. We must provide leadership.
I'll conclude by addressing energy independence. I'd like to address this important concept which has been an illusive American goal throughout my political life because to some people Keystone was about secure energy and I think that now this is an illusion.
Presently, with new methods for retrieving oil and natural gas, the US is getting closer to becoming energy independent - from having to import the majority of oil from the Middle East or other potentially insecure sources of supply. A good thing considering how important energy is to our prosperity.
But the International Energy Agency warned several years ago that to stay under the precautionary 2C ceiling rise in global temperature - which the US, China, Russia, the EU, and most nations globally have agreed to in order to stay safe from dangerous climate change - the IEA has warned that the carbon budget science was clear: at least two thirds of the present known global fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground unburned. The IEA also warned against building new fossil fuel infrastructure like the Keystone pipeline or new fossil fuel power plants in order not to get locked-in to more instead of less greenhouse gas emissions.
The science in the briefings I read strongly suggests that soon, sometime in our near future, we will have to greatly constrain burning fossil fuels or at least stop burning fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage, a technology that has great promise but which is not yet practical. Climate change will be publicly acknowledged as such a real and urgent threat that we must stop burning coal and the most carbon intensive 'dirty' oil immediately.
Then we will be effectively stranded and not energy independent if we don't have effective CCS and have not built the capacity to produce renewable energy - wind, solar, tidal, etc. - to power our society.
If our government functioned as it should - given the clear warning from the climate science - we would have had the co-operation between all levels of government and throughout our wider society to have transitioned to post fossil fuel energy supply and use. We would have long ago transferred the multi-billion dollar annual subsidies from the fossil fuel industries to renewables. We would have targeted investment in CCS, smart grids and energy efficiency. We would have used instruments like carbon taxes or cap and trade to stimulate markets to slim down our obese energy use and redesign our communities for efficient transport and productivity. We would have grown a vibrant, healthy economy and would be proud of meeting the challenge of our responsibility to future generations.
But our government doesn't function as it should. There has been massive market failure in not recognizing the science and our responsibility; a massive market failure in not transitioning to a post fossil fuel economy; and we risk becoming not energy independent but energy stranded in the worst of all possible worlds.
Our decision today against permitting Keystone is a small step that my Administration can do today and as I said we will try to do what we can, without Congress, in the teeth of a powerful energy lobby that resists needed change, but I hope this is a wake up call to Americans who care about their country and their kids. Our decision today will hopefully be a turning point to help get us onto a path to needed change. We need to be responsible. We need to take action today to protect our kids future. Thanks for your time today.
Bill Henderson is a frequent contributor to Countercurrents on Climate Change . He can be reached at bill (at) pacificfringe.net
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