Right Reason

Last week’s decision by the Obama Administration, under recommendation of the State Department, to deny the permit for the Transcanada Keystone XL pipeline has revealed definitively that our President and the entire administration embraces an ideology that knows no compromise.

The proposed 1700 mile pipeline would allow crude oil in Canada to be transported across several states to the coast of Texas, where it can be refined.

The pipeline project enjoys support from congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle, union leaders, and the many Americans who had hoped to benefit from the project either directly or indirectly. The administration has made its decision in alliance with environmentalists and the green lobby.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been requested to testify before a House committee on the decision.

House Speaker John Boehner stated, “The Keystone Pipeline has been through three years [of study] and it’s passed every approval process as required by the law.” In his statement, President Obama affirmed that the decision was not based on its merits, but because he felt “rushed” to make a decision based on an arbitrary deadline set by Congressional Republicans. The GOP is determined to revive the pipeline project by attaching it to an extension of the two percent payroll tax cut legislation that affects over 160 million American work.

Bill McKibben, noted environmentalist and head of 350.org, has lauded the decision to reject the permit, asserting “Assuming that what we’re hearing is true, this isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he’s too conciliatory. …But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact ‘huge political consequences,’ he’s stood up strong.” An earlier article covered McKibben’s visit to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida to encourage college students to “Occupy Washington” to protest the pipeline.

This decision will not end the project. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has expressed his “profound disappointment” with this decision from the Obama Administration.  Harper stated previously of Canada’s intent to sell the oil to the Chinese if an agreement cannot be reached with the United States.

This administration has no difficulty taking taxpayer money to fund “green” energy projects despite strong indications of financial instability, as revealed in the Solyndra scandal which cost the taxpayers over half a billion dollars.  The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been investigating the circumstances of the loan, which had been structured to subordinate the taxpayers interests to the interests of private investors, which is a violation of the law.

Despite President Obama’s statements assuring us that his goal for this country is to increase jobs and to work towards becoming less reliant on energy from sources that oftentimes are less than friendly, the decision of last week belies his true intent.

President Obama has said no to new jobs and no to improving our energy security.

Prior to his election, Candidate Obama, in explaining his vision for the future of energy in America, stated that under his cap and trade plan “energy prices will necessarily skyrocket” and, “If someone wants to build a coal powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that is being emitted.”

Our dependence on foreign oil has become a threat to our national security.  Even as 2011 saw the highest price per gallon of gas in history and the outlook for 2012 predicts still higher prices, the President remains steadfast in his quixotic vision of a brighter tomorrow where our all of our energy will be supplied by solar panels and wind turbines.

As America becomes enslaved by this increase in the cost of energy, the Administration is accomplishing its goal of capturing every last cent out of the economy in the name of environmental justice, to be distributed as it sees fit to bankroll the green agenda.

Bill McKibben:  environmentalist, educator and author of Eaarth (because evidently one “a” is not enough) has been traveling to colleges and universities across the country speaking to students about the dire circumstances that we are facing on the planet. He has recruited the involvement of people in our religious communities and calls himself one of the “Methodist Mafia.”

Introduced to the audience as “most important person in the world”, McKibben began by saying that he was there as a professional bummer outer, obviously taking it to a level the students would understand.  He has been studying and writing about climate change since 1989 and he and the other “greens” are in a panic over the drastic changes we are seeing in the earth’s climate. Apparently scientists underestimated how much we humans affected the climate and we must do something now, before all of this is irreversible.

McKibben explained that at the rate we are going we will see a five degree increase in global temperature within this century and that every degree of increase will reduce crop output by ten percent. We cannot let this happen for ethical and moral as well as practical reasons. The only solution is that we must get off of coal, oil and gas FAST! As it stands, food prices are going up and millions of people are starving. Americans burn more fossil fuel in two days than the people of the Sahara do in one year.

Our political leaders are not making changes because of threats from the fossil fuel industry.  The greens are becoming desperate as they see their oh-so-carefully laid plans falling apart. McKibben’s message to the students is that they can no longer talk lightly about the very survival of the planet. He is building a movement to organize the globe and force President Obama to honor his campaign promises to reduce our fossil fuel dependence. America must reduce its carbon dioxide emissions eighty percent by 2020. We only have five to ten years before the damage is irreversible.

Building onto the Occupy Wall Street movement, students and environmentalists will be gathering to encircle the White House in Washington, D.C. November 6^th to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline. McKibben declared that Natural Resource Management and Environmental Consultant CardnoEntrix finding that the pipeline will have no significant environmental impact proves that they are “politically filthy” and are worse than Dick Cheney!  “This is a crime in progress!”

According to Bill McKibben “You could even say Wall Street’s been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always runs afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it’s a damned good thing the tables are starting to turn.”  Here is the link to their 350.org web site.

He showed slides of people around the world displaying their commitment to 350.org. One slide showed adorable children living in the Maldives and he told the audience that they will most likely be refugees before they are grown because the Maldives will soon be entirely underwater.

The explanation of the 350 “is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in “Parts Per Million” in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it’s the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.” Today we are at 393 PPM. Looks like we are all doomed!

The November 6^th  Tar Sands Action has been organized because “Exactly one year before the election, we want to encircle the whole White House to ask President Obama to reject Keystone XL and live up to his promise to free us from the tyranny of oil. In doing so, we want to remind him of the power of the movement that he rode to the White House in 2008. This is bigger than any one person – President or no – and we will carry on, with or without him.”

He ended his appeal by telling the students to take a train or bus, but get to Washington, D.C. on November 6^th. “It may be too late” and “The worst thing in the world is happening.”

Our children are being indoctrinated in colleges across the country and the world with these pseudo-scientists running around like Chicken Little predicting the imminent end of the world unless we change our evil fossil fuel consuming lifestyles.  We must make sure that they understand these radical environmentalists have an agenda and it is not “green”, it is “greed”.