RQ: To what extent will more pipelines impact sustainable development efforts?
A pipeline’s purpose is to be a conduit between two points, a conveyer of product, a transmitter of ideas. However, pipelines are often considered to be a one-way street or a dead-end, especially when it is tethered to money. With sustainable development at the forefront of the global stage, pipelines have become a go-to to ensure substantial resources for current and future generations. Some believe that constructing more pipelines (e.g., the Keystone XL) is necessary to thrive, while others believe it to be counterproductive. Supporters of pipelines credit them with providing more jobs, helping countries be more self-sustainable, and fostering a more robust economy. Those who oppose new pipelines contend that they are detrimental to the environment, open countries to attack, and create a greater dichotomy between classes, only leaving later generations in turmoil. The key concernamidst the rhetorical muck is whether pipelines will be a thriving conduit to the future or will they impede progress and clog it up with ruin.
ADD ANOTHER BACKGROUND/INTRO PARAGRAPH AND BODY PARAGRAPHS THAT PRECEDE THIS ONE
Pipelines are not only seen as harmful to the environment, they also bare an Achilles’ heel for many nations and regions. Since 2003, there have been approximately 200 attacks on pipelines in Iraq alone1, and in a ten year span (2005-2015), there have been 227 reported attacks on the Balochistan pipeline in Pakistan2. This doesn’t include the more recent on the Encana in Canada or the Gezhan in Turkey. These terroriststrikes have damaged the environment and have been fatal to workers and innocent bystanders. Guy Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), fears that pipelines have become “a weapon of choice” for people with political and economic agendas, and is “creat[ing] an inhospitable climate” in many regions (2005). He and those at the IAGS assert that pipelines, though necessary for the effective transportation of oil, should cease to be built , as it could prevent exposure to vulnerabilities, mollify, “increasing hostil[ities]”3, and thwart terrorism. Otherwise, countries could be exposing a potentially infectious and open sore to bloodthirsty, extremist rebels.
The IAGS’s argument on this issue, though meant to ensure security, can be seen as fallacious because it equates less terrorism with the cessation of pipeline construction. This is a slippery slope and doesn’t recognize that terrorism most often occurs far from pipelines. Furthermore, Luft’s position could be considered biased, as the IAGS is centralized in the USA capital. Being at the epicenter of American politics, it is possible that his cautious words could derive from a political agenda. His position, however, is strengthened by his reference to the growing global data on pipeline assailment, as well as his experience in energy security. Luft has earned numerous advanced degrees in international and strategic studies in diverse countries, and is also a consultant for both worldwide organizations and U.S. Congress, bipartisan committees. Moreover, long before the Keystone XL debate, Luft published several studies and books on energy and security challenges and paradigms. Though it is plausible that his stance may be swayed by his political affiliation, there is far more credibility as a result of the depth, breadth, and triangulation of his studies.