Salon.com > Bill McKibben

The XL stakes of the Keystone pipeline

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines. It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet. If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain.

Sometimes, what starts out as a minor skirmish can wind up determining the outcome of a war -- and that seems to be the case when it comes to the mounting battle over the Keystone XL pipeline. If given the go-ahead by President Obama, it will daily carry more than 700,000 barrels of tar-sands oil to those Gulf Coast refineries, providing a desperately needed boost to the Canadian energy industry. If Obama says no, the Canadians (and their American backers) will encounter possibly insuperable difficulties in exporting their heavy crude oil, discouraging further investment and putting the industry’s future in doubt.

5 reasons global warming is more terrifying than you think

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:38:00 +0000

This week the sane among us will scoff at those hoarding candles and food for another apocalypse that fails to materialize. We’ll laugh at the accounts of people readying their bunkers and at store shelves being wiped clean. We know that the world will not come to a cataclysmic end on December 21.

Here’s what we’re not so good at understanding: We are part of a slowly enfolding tragedy in which the end of the world as we know it may be getting closer and closer. It won’t happen on any particular day that we can pinpoint and there won’t be a giant explosion or a big flood that will wipe everything away. There will be many floods and fires over many years. One species, one crop dying off after another.

Bill McKibben does the Sandy math

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 20:20:00 +0000

As a writer and activist Bill McKibben has devoted his life to tackling the threat posed by man-made climate change. As Hurricane Sandy brought normal life on the East Coast to a standstill, McKibben's Twitter feed went into overdrive -- a veritable deluge of storm updates and political commentary. A few moments ago, he took some time out of a very busy day to explain why climate change hasn't been a bigger issue in the run-up to the ongoing catastrophe:

The candidates refused to talk about climate change during the debates and the mainstream media hardly dares mention global warming in the context of this storm. What's going on here?

What's going on here is the astonishing power of the fossil fuel industry. They have essentially bought one party and scared the other. And they've done the same thing all over the world. They're the richest, most powerful industry on earth and they are able to keep people from questioning what's become the most dangerous set of corporate practices in history.

Pipeline installed on Capitol Hill

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:13:00 +0000

The controversy over the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline intensified Saturday when the Senate voted to approve a bill extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax holiday that also included a rider that force the president to make a decision on the controversial Keystone pipeline in 60 days instead of allowing for the lengthier review of health and environmental impacts that President Obama mandated last month. But no matter how the tax holiday maneuvering turns out, the environmental movement has achieved a victory by injecting the issue into the heart of the Washington political debate.

The Republican leadership is seeking to portray the environmental and health review of the Keystone project as a capitulation to fringe interests. Newt Gingrich described the pipeline opponents as “left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco,” while Mitch McConnell said the president shouldn’t “let a few radical environmentalists stand in the way” of a pipeline Republicans claim would create 20,000 jobs.