ANIMAL ISSUES BULLETIN
October 6, 2011
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** Keystone XL Pipeline Controversy
** First National Conference to End Factory Farming
** Ivy League Research Misconduct Report Card
** Protecting America's Pets From Domestic VIolence
** Ask Virginia Not to Use Glue Traps for Rodent Control
** Marshall Islands Declares Shark Sanctuary
** First Step to Freedom for One Captive Orca
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-- Tell Obama to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline –
The proposed 1,700 mile Keystone XL Pipeline would carry tar sands from Canada’s Boreal forest to refineries in Texas, passing through several states on its way. If approved, the big corporate winners would be TransCanada and ConocoPhillips. But Brian Horejsi, an ecologist in Canada, and thousands of others want Americans to take a close look at the Keystone XL Pipeline. His article -- “How the Keystone XL Got Buried by Bad Decisions – Obama and the Tar Sands Pipeline” -- effectively destroys the American image of steadfast and principled Canadians. Horejsi does not mince words as he describes a Canada with weak environmental protections and a political/corporate/media complex that has been relentlessly poisoning the health and integrity of the country. [Also see “Blame Canada” at www.onearth.org/article/blame-canada]
The “bad decisions” which upset this ecologist are not just Canada’s. So far, the decisions makers in our country also seem to be traveling down the road of collusion, single-minded ignorance, and short-term thinking. Bulletin readers may have seen recent news stories about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get the Keystone XL pipeline on the fast track for approval and neutralize federal agencies charged with protecting American and our environment.
Unfortunately, there is no lack of criticism about the process America is using to decide whether or not to approve this pipeline. Since Obama will make the final decision soon, people who are concerned need to speak up now. Just look at Horejsi in Counterpunch and stories at Huffington to get an idea of the issues:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/09/obama-and-the-tar-sands-pipeline/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/groups-sue-to-block-construction-of-keystone-xl_n_996075.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/state-dept-keystone-xl-pipeline-kansas_n_982070.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/keystone-xl-pipeline-effects_n_945688.html
The State Department is greasing the wheels as much as possible. This agency actually hired Cardno Entrix, who lists TransCanada as a client, to conduct the environmental impact process; and actually concluded that the pipeline will cause “no significant impacts” even before the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) could present its findings on how endangered species would potentially be affected. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts was so disturbed by the exclusion of the FWS opinion that on August 26 he wrote to Secretary of State Clinton basically asking her to explain how State managed to arrive at its “no significant impacts” conclusion and how the public can be expected to comment on the proposed pipeline without the benefit of FWS’s biological assessment.
There is also a big PR movement to brand the Keystone XL Pipeline as “ethical oil”! Just take a look at writer/activist Naomi Klein debunking this propaganda at a recent protest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctwgcBe8Bzs. The Dalai Lama and eight other Nobel Peace Laureates have asked President Obama to say no to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and other organizations have condemned the pipeline. America’s leading climatologist James Hansen calls the Keystone XL Pipeline the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” At the DC protest on September 3, Hansen along with other well-known activists including Klein, Margot Kidder, Darryl Hanna, and aboriginal actress Tantoo Cardinal were arrested.
Here is how Tar Sands Actions reported on this protest:
WASHINGTON– The largest environmental civil disobedience in decades concluded at the White House this morning with organizers pledging to escalate a nationwide campaign to push President Obama to deny the permit for a new tar sands oil pipeline.
“Given yesterday’s baffling cave on ozone standards, the need for a fighting environmental movement has never been more clear,” said Bill McKibben, who spearheaded the protest. “That movement is being born right here in front of the White House and reverberating around the country.”
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline has become the most important environmental decision facing President Obama before the 2012 election and sparked nationwide opposition, from Nebraska ranchers to former Obama campaigners. A petition with 617,428 names opposing the pipeline will be delivered to the White House today.
Over the course of the two-week sit-in 1,252 people were arrested, including top climate scientists, landowners from Texas and Nebraska, former Obama for America staffers, First Nations leaders from Canada, and notable individuals including Bill McKibben, former White House official Gus Speth, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, actor Daryl Hannah, filmmaker Josh Fox, and author Naomi Klein. [http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/ralph-nader-on-the-proposed-keystone-xl-pipeline-1252-arrested-in-front-of-the-white-house/]
At the rally, hundreds and hundreds of people—including Ralph Nader—told the U.S. government that they reject the argument that the Keystone XL Pipeline will help people improve their lives and the lives of their children. They don’t believe that the proposed pipeline will reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, decrease gas prices, strengthen national security and only pose minimal risks to the environment. They don’t accept the notion that this pipeline must be a choice between jobs for Americans and the environment. For why, just look at the Cornell Global Labor Institute report link: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/new_cornell_global_labor_insti.html
Furthermore, a new report from Oil Change International says that the refined oil from the pipeline will be sold abroad and not to Americans at all! It looks like the real reason for this pipeline is to give Canada easier access to overseas markets since TransCanada will be able to sell through the tax-free trade zone in Port Arthur, Texas. Read all about it at: http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/22870
But let's get back specifically to impacts on the environment and wildlife. Here is what Tar and Sands Action has to say:
The State Department Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) fails to adequately analyze life cycle, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the pipeline. Extraction and refinement of oil sands are more GHG-intensive compared to conventional oil. The EIS estimates that the additional annual GHG emissions from the proposed pipeline could range from an additional “12-23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent … (roughtly the equivalent of annual emissions from 2 to 4 coal-fired power plants)” over conventional crude oil from the Middle East. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) believes that the methodology used by the State Department is inaccurate and could underestimate GHG emissions by as much as 20 percent. Given that the expected lifetime of the Keystone XL pipeline is fifty years, the EPA notes that the project could yield an extra 1.15 billion tons of GHGs using the quantitative estimates in the EIS. [http://www.tarsandsaction.org/spread-the-word/key-facts-keystone-xl/]
The Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) wrote that based on estimates in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that “approximately 20-30 percent of the world’s plant and animal species assessed as of 2006 are likely to be increasingly at high risk of extinction as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2-3 degrees C above preindustrial levels.…Climate change has the potential to cause abrupt ecosystem changes and increased species extinctions.” [http://www.fws.gov/home/climatechange/impacts.html]
And the extra 1.15 billion tons of GHGs from Keystone were not even considered in this FWS statement.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been one of the environmental organizations leading the struggle to stop the Keystone pipeline. According to NRDC and other experts, if the pipeline is approved, the destruction of songbird habitat would be enormous and water supplies that millions of Americans and wildlife depend on would be threatened. See the video and story “Stop Tar Sands Save Songbirds” at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/16/1007482/-Stop-Tar-Sands-Save-Songbirds-
Here’s the connection based on the Boreal Songbird Initiative authored by Jeff Wells, Ph.D.:
It is estimated that half of America’s migratory birds nest in the boreal forest, and each year 22-170 million birds breed in the area that could eventually be developed for tar sands oil. The report projects that the cumulative impact over the next 30-50 years could be as high as 166 million birds lost, including future generations. The report suggests impacts will increase in the next 30-50 years, despite international treaties to protect these birds.
Almost every aspect of oil development affects migratory birds throughout the flyways of North America. … Increasing development of tar sands refinery and pipeline infrastructure is creating a direct pollution delivery system into the Great Lakes. The resulting decrease in air and water quality affects migratory birds, which will suffer elevated mortality numbers as a result of contaminants and toxins from refining. Most importantly, global warming changes already affecting Boreal birds are exacerbated by the tar sands, which account for Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.
So what can people do. Write a letter to the editor, sign a petition, call or contact the White House, and/or attend a protest rally. Here are a few suggested actions:
Use the NRDC Save Biogems online action item to send a message to the POTUS. Go to:
https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2447&s_src=flash
Dear President Obama,
I am joining nine Nobel Peace Laureates in their opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. I have shared and supported your vision of a clean energy future for America. That's why I am so distressed that your State Department is rushing headlong toward approval of the pipeline, which could devastate the environment in both Canada and the United States. Tar sands development is laying waste to the great Boreal forest, obliterating migratory bird nesting grounds and spewing excessive global warming pollution. By transporting the world's dirtiest oil south to refineries in Texas, the Keystone XL will directly threaten drinking water supplies for millions of Americans while raising gas prices in the Midwest.
This pipeline is in the interests of oil companies but does NOT serve our national interest.
As we move toward a more sustainable future, there is no room for the dirtiest oil on the planet. Please reject the Keystone XL pipeline and pursue clean energy alternatives instead. Thank you.
SAMPLES AND EXAMPLES:
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (8/21/11)
Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers
This page opposes the building of a 1,700-mile pipeline called the Keystone XL, which would carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does.
The Canadian government insists that it has found ways to reduce those emissions. But a new report from Canada’s environmental ministry shows how great the impact of the tar sands will be in the coming years, even with cleaner production methods.
It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir. Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution.
One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020 — even as other sectors are reducing emissions. Canada still hopes to meet the overall target it agreed to at Copenhagen in 2009 — a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. If it falls short, as seems likely, tar sands extraction will bear much of the blame.
Canada’s government is committed to the tar sands business. (Alberta’s energy minister, Ronald Liepert, has declared, “I’m not interested in Kyoto-style policies.”) The United States can’t do much about that, but it can stop the Keystone XL pipeline.
The State Department will decide whether to approve or reject the pipeline by the end of the year. It has already delivered two flawed reports on the pipeline’s environmental impact. It should acknowledge the environmental risk of the pipeline and the larger damage caused by tar sands production and block the Keystone XL.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Written by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse:
Dear Editor,
Should President Obama approve TransCanada's tar sands pipeline, setting the course for 50 years? People across ideological lines respond unequivocally no, some following Dr. King's footsteps with civil disobedience in D.C.:
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Climate scientist Dr. Hansen says this pipeline is "game over" for solving climate change. EPA agrees that greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil are 82% greater than crude or similar to annual emissions from 7 coal-fired plants, thus negating benefits from states disallowing these plants.
TransCanada estimates 11 spills over 50 years, but their existing pipeline had 12 spills in 1 year. Safety and environmental regulations don't even cover this unconventional tar sands pipeline.
Spills can happen at the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies drinking water for millions and 20% of agricultural production.
We need the media to inform the public before it is game over.
Written by Oke:
Dear Editor,
People from all fifty states, of all ages and political beliefs, are flocking to D.C. to participate in peaceful protests against approval of TransCanada-KXL’s tar sands oil pipeline. The environmental consequences
of mining tar sands in Alberta, combined with the danger of pipeline spills in the US, and the high level of emissions from burning this oil are so extreme that climate scientists have said it's "game over"
for the climate should this project proceed.
Uniting in what Martin Luther King Jr. believed is the single most important tool of democracy, civil disobedience, these protestors are risking arrest and imprisonment to get their message out: "Do not mortgage our children's future by allowing this pipeline to be built."
President Obama needs to hear these voices, reject the pipeline, and be a leader on this national and global issue: saving our climate from devastating, uncontrollable changes. Your coverage of these brave Americans efforts to save our planet is vital.