The Air You Breathe

I’m no heavy critic of the Obama administration. I understand his health care reform policies, the ending of the Iraq war, his repealing of don't ask don't tell, shutting down of Guantanamo, et cetera. But it is his policies on the environment that are much more symbolic and much more indicative of his presidential “attitude.”Obama is largely known for his environment policies. Earlier in his presidency, fifty-four billion dollars were spent towards energy efficiency, and he’s the first president to publicly support divestment. Now he's faced with the Keystone XL, an extension to the massive Keystone oil pipeline running from the infamous Canadian tar sands down the middle of the United States of America.Approving the construction of Keystone XL could be the biggest blunder of his presidency.Three weeks ago, the State Department released its final assessment of the Keystone XL, which would carry heavy oil from Canada's tar sands across Nebraska and five other states to refineries in Texas. The State Department severely downplayed the environmental impacts and said that although the tar sands have a somewhat larger carbon footprint than other sources of oil, the pipeline was unlikely to affect the rate at which the oil is extracted, thereby not increasing environmental impacts very much.In the November of 2011, Obama was pressured by a group of Republican senators to make a decision on the pipeline in 60 days, and as expected, he rejected it. The State Department report was eleven volumes, eleven five-hundred page (plus) books of “scientific justification.” But surely no one in their right mind thinks that this means the construction of the Keystone XL is all hunky-dory now. Just last week, hundreds gathered in front of the White House to protest the construction, bringing a giant piece of the pipeline and laying in on the sidewalk.The actual gravity of the situation lies in two main issues: path dependency and US leadership. Path dependency is the term used to describe the fact that once a policy is put into place, it then constrains future options to those within that policy framework. More simply, the choices we make now determine what choices we get to make in the future.If the Keystone XL is approved and built, it symbolizes the lackadaisical mood the United States has towards climate change. That, I'm afraid, is the real threat of Keystone XL: the loss of US’s status as a global leader in environmental improvement.The Keystone XL could easily turn into decades of extracting high-CO2 fuel at a time when we should be winding down such carbon intensive resource exploitation. It could mean countless oil spills across America's heartland written off as an acceptable side effect of making money and creating roughly half a thousand jobs. It could be decades of continued political lobbying against any CO2-limiting regulations, and another step back in our progression towards energy independence.Protecting our planet from Keystone XL would protect the United State's standing on the global stage, and by reassuring all nations that the United States takes climate change seriously, it would protect international negotiations from devolving into a finger pointing, blame shifting debacle. Protecting us from Keystone XL would protect us from much more foreign influence on US energy policy. Protecting us from Keystone XL would protect US land from oil spills and leaks, and protect its citizens from the terrible consequences of such disasters.Most importantly, protecting us from Keystone XL would protect our atmosphere from one of the most carbon-intensive fuels ever discovered. And if the president doesn't realize that now, then who is he really protecting? The citizens breathing the air or the corporations selling the oil? 