I didn't post about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests this past fall- it's a topic which was covered by the news media here in the East, but between an arduous work schedule and my apartment hunt/move, I really didn't feel like I had enough time to pay the topic the attention it deserved. Generally speaking, I am against any moves to double down on fossil fuel use (I believe that fossil fuels should be viewed as 'startup capital' to help humanity develop the technological base necessary for building an economy based on renewable energy), and I believe that the treatment that Native Americans have received at the hands of the various European-derived governments that have sprouted up on this continent has been disgraceful. The very re-routing of the Dakota Access Pipeline away from the City of Bismark was an egregious form of environmental racism (really, Republicans, if this pipeline is so necessary, and so safe, why not put it in white people's backyards?). The whole issue hits on a number of points of interest of mine- environmentalism, energy technology, and race relations- I wish I had had more time to write about it.
For a brief time, it appeared as if President Obama had solved the issue by having the Army Corps of Engineers put a stop to the pipeline project, but this victory was short-lived as the Orange Ogre won the Presidential election.
I have no doubt that Donald Trump will have no qualms about oppressing the Native Americans who have been at the heart of the fight against this pipeline. Donald Trump has a history of maligning Native Americans. When the St Regis Mohawks attempted to open a casino in New York's Catskill Mountains, Donald Trump, and his creepy flack Roger Stone, approved attack ads that amounted to character assassination, characterizing the St Regis as violent criminals and drug dealers:
If Donald Trump was venal and greedy enough to engage in character assassination of a Native American ethnic group in a petty dispute over upstate casino gambling, he's sure to be even more of an evil, racist asshole given the financial stakes involved in this pipeline dispute. He's not quite as bad as Jackson, but then again, this isn't the 19th century... on both a social justice and an environmental basis, this executive order is a terrible, horrible thing.
3 comments:
I'm often amazed at the bizarre positions my fellow lefties find themselves wedded to. There are important things we can be doing, but we so often find ourselves putting huge amounts of energy and political capital into pointless fights over minimal events. Keystone and Dakota Access are a great example of this. Often framed as "I don't want to do anything to support more fossil fuels use" - which is a terrific goal - they do nothing of the sort. The oil is coming out of Canada, and it's being shipped across the US to various refiners and ports. But most of it is being shipped by rail. Aging, leaky single wall tank cars on aging track beds crossing thousands of rivers and streams on aging, rusting bridges. Go downtown in any town in America - what do you see? Railroad crossings, right in the center of thousands of towns and cities across the country.
Me? I'll take modern pipelines built with modern alloys and welded by nearly perfectly accurate robots than those ancient trains any time. We've been successful in making renewables, particularly wind and solar, economically viable, and you can see that reflected in the price of crude oil.
Please take a moment to read my piece from December and think about, with all the threats to actual human and civil rights we face today, how much we should even bother with what is, when viewed objectively, and improvement to the status quo...
The data indicates that oil tankers have accidents more frequently, but when pipelines fail, much more oil is released and it is more difficult to contain. But the quantity oil released into the environment from pipelines is much greater than the amount due to rail accidents:
https://thinkprogress.org/data-oil-trains-spill-more-often-but-pipelines-spill-bigger-9533009d4aba#.q9sdenkim
I'm often amazed at the bizarre positions my fellow lefties find themselves wedded to. There are important things we can be doing, but we so often find ourselves putting huge amounts of energy and political capital into pointless fights over minimal events. Keystone and Dakota Access are a great example of this. Often framed as "I don't want to do anything to support more fossil fuels use" - which is a terrific goal - they do nothing of the sort.
Those tar sands are dirty petroleum sources, with a high extraction cost. The problem with our fossil fuel industry is that really represents eating our seed corn while we actively stymie efforts at bringing renewable resources online. Also, the NimBYism on display, the environmental racism, is abhorrent- fuck those Natives, put the pipeline on THEIR land, can't have it running through my suburb.
The data indicates that oil tankers have accidents more frequently, but when pipelines fail, much more oil is released and it is more difficult to contain. But the quantity oil released into the environment from pipelines is much greater than the amount due to rail accidents
What a tradeoff, damned if you do, damned if you don't... best to get off the stuff.
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