It makes no good economic or environmental sense to begin extracting oil from oil sands at this time. Obama has made the right decision not to go forward with the Keystone project and to call for further study. The problem is that extracting crude from oil sands results in anywhere from 10 to 45% more CO2 emission than pumping less viscous crude. Gobal warming is an established fact. The only question is how important is anthropomorphic CO2 versus natural emissions and other causes. Until these questions are resolved it makes no sense to encourage development of an unneeded process that releases copious amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. For these same reasons we should move as quickly as possible away from air transport to high speed electric rail. Rail, even at high speeds, is far more energy efficient than air transport, and even when powered by fossil fuels releases much less CO2 and other greenhouse gasses per passenger mile than do aircraft. When rail is powered by reactors there is no CO2 emission. Any concerns about dangers from reactors pale by comparison to the disaster that would result from runaway climate change. If the latter should occur, and I don't think it will, by the time it was recognized it would be too late to do anything about it. Gingrich and other Republicans have criticized the President for delaying Keystone when jobs are sorely needed. They have also dragged their heels with regard to passenger rail development, which potentially could create far more jobs than the Keystone pipeline while also creating a permanent reduction in oil consumption. This shows the dearth of intellectual power in the Republican establishment. Sad. What is needed now are jobs for low skilled labor. A national tree planting program would put a million or more low skilled workers back to work and produce something of value that would have a chance of contributing in a positive way to the global warming threat. http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/01/19/keystone-pipeline-winners-and-losers/
No it is not. If ClimateGates 1.0 and 2.0 have taught us anything, it's that MMGW is as much of a religion as anything. What is an established fact is that almost all "green energy" hype is bunk. Anyone with a working knowlege of math and physics should know that.
They Keystone Pipeline was gonna get lots of corporate welfare on Americans backs. Glad it got cancelled. tired of lemon socialism.
There are some reasons to oppose it--eminent domain being one of them. And yes, it's likely to be another crony capitalist goat rope, unfortunately.
Purely political. He is pandering to his libtard base and will most likely approve it after the election. If he doesn't, the US will lose more precious commodity resources and jobs to the Chinese who will crank out the CO2 emissions on the other side of the globe to their heart's content. Obama isn't that stupid.