Opponents draw an ideological line in the sand and ask U.S. culture to enter rehab for its addiction to petroleum. Their main concern is global climate change. Regionally, it involves the Sand Hills region of western Nebraska: a billowing patch of praHalt Keystone Pipeline, Protect Sand Hills keystone aftermarket partsikeystone aftermarket partsrie, an important wetland habitat for wildlife and a recharge zone for the underlying Ogallala aquifer, the regions primary source of water for human supply and irrigation. Will pipeline construction destabilize the soil causing wind erosion? Will the pipeline rupture — perhaps across some undiscovered seismic ult — polluting wetlands and aquifers?
Halt Keystone Pipeline, Protect Sand Hills keystone aftermarket parts,Proponents claim the project is desperately needed to create construction jobs, tax revenues, energy independence from suspect allies and to reboot the U.S. economy via lower oil prices. They claim it will be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than tanker transport, and that oil released from this bitumen is less polluting than heavy crude from California, and any coal plant you could imagine.
An argument could be made that burning tar sands is good for the region because it will warm the globe, which will increase drought in western Nebraska, killing the grass, which will mobilize the dunes again to make even more wetlands.
But at least we will have done the right thing for our grandchildren.
Things, however, are fine right now. The last thing we need is a veritable Sahara in the middle of our continent and a lingering downwind plume of dust. So lets do what we can to keep future drought from pulling the hair trigger on dune mobilization. And one of the most important symbolic decisions we could make is to deny the Keystone permit. Yes, the liquefied tar will likely go elsewhere, likely in tankers, which is worse.
Environmental politics is so much hot air I sometimes dont know which way to whirl.
Take the Keystone XL pipeline project, which is designed to link the oil-thirsty United States to the tar sandstone of Alberta. Its been under environmental review since September 2008 whenTransCanadaapplied for a permit from theU.S. State Department. Yet after four phases, 14 proposed routes, two major studies by the State Department, cartloads ofEnvironmental Protection Agencyadvice and more than 200,000 public comments, PresidentBarack Obamaput the project on hold last November, ostensibly pending additional analysis.
In the Sand Hills, drifting sand blocks streams, ponding what summer rain arrives from the Gulf of Mexico in hollows created by wind erosion between the dunes. In response, the wetlands stabilize the dunes by raising the humidity high enough to keep the grass alive, which prevents the dunes from drifting. Meanwhile, the ponds leak downward to recharge the aquifer, which has risen dramatically where sand drifting has been significant.
All this heat got me thinking about the hot air that created the Sand Hills. Though not as sharp crested or brown as they used to be, theyre still the largest patch of desert dunes in North America, resembling those found in the hyperarid parts of southern California and the Middle East, but now covered with vegetation, which in some years makes the region resemble Ireland, according to geologists David Loope and James Swineheart.. A sobering example of climate change, because compelling evidence proves that multiple droughts within the last thousand years have led to full mobilization of the sand sea.
During his last presidential campaign, Obama promised that his would be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. Four years later, 12,000 anti-Keystone demonstrators held him to that promise by surrounding theWhite House. Many were arrested for civil disobedience. Four days later, Obama delayed a decision until at least 2013.
Robert M. Thorson is a professor of geology at theUniversity of Connecticuts College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a member of The Courants Place Board of Contributors. His column appears every other Thursday. He can be reached [email protected].
The tit for tat puffs of hot air have been scinating. On July 6, 2010, Rep.Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chair of theHouse Energy and Commerce Committeecalled Keystone XL a multi-billion dollar investment to expand our reliance on the dirtiest source of transportation fuel currently available. The next day, the Wall Street Journal opined that U.S. greens loathe oil, and the tar sands has become the next Alaska in green mythology.
