Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Despite what you’ve heard about natural gas being clean, fracking also contributes to climate change. Although the burning of the gas is clean, the process of fracking releases so much methane into the air, that if all the shale in California is fracked, it will delay the implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, by 80 years.
While the public demands protections for air, land, and water, the California oil industry uses front groups and spends millions on lobbying the legislature, gaining disproportionate influence in subverting pollution and fuel standards. Keeping the economy addicted to climate-fouling fossil fuels and reaping billions in profits, Big Oil claims to be a “victim” of excessive regulation. Stop Fooling California!
While bulldozers and diggers bashed a 50-foor-wide path for the Keystone XL pipeline, planned from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas, a group of tar sands blockaders have taken to the trees.
Ecuador abandons a plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation, putting Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. Unable to raise sufficient financing, President Correa plans to move forward with oil drilling in this wild Amazonian region, putting wildlife and willfully uncontacted tribes at risk.
As the Tar Sands Oil Mining and the associated Keystone XL and Northern Gateway Pipelines push forward, education and collaboration are necessary to stop these destructive projects and demand a sustainable and clean energy policy today.
Planned expansion of mining the Florida-sized Alberta Boreal Forest for tar sands bitumen crude oil, destroying habitats and indigenous societies, will continue despite the delay in the Keystone XL pipeline.
Keystone XL, touted to bring jobs and energy security, will do neither. Even if the pipeline never spilled, even if the tar sands weren’t an environmental atrocity, this would still be a bad deal for the US public.