Picking Our Climate Battles

On Sunday, Nov. 6, thousands of people from across the country circled the White House to protest the proposed construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The pipeline would transport oil extracted from the bitumen sands in Canada to the largest U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. Climate activists have come out in vehement opposition to the pipeline because it would increase U.S. dependence on energy derived from the carbon-intensive oil sands. Although the Keystone pipeline would have deep ramifications on the environment, its portrayal as a crucial tipping point in the climate change movement is myopic considering the scale of our national mission to reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions. Protesters should do their best to stop the pipeline and the United States should make an aggressive move towards adopting and improving alternative energy sources to replace oil, but this process of achieving independence from oil must be approached holistically and realistically.

The pipeline has garnered attention from protestors and the media because it has been portrayed as a gateway to U.S. dependence on increasingly carbon-intensive resources. The Canadian Government released statistics stating that the process of extracting and refining the oil from the Alberta oil sands could emit up to 35% more greenhouse gases than the average conventional oil refined in the U.S.  Climate activists see the U.S. interest in these increasingly hard to access and carbon-intensive sources of oil such as oil sands and shale oil as the beginning of a downward trend. In the context of the Obama administration’s goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions 83 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, environmental activists see the construction of the pipeline as a step in the opposite direction. NASA’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen went as far as to condemn the pipeline as “game over” for climate change if the Administration was to continue pursuing these sources of oil in the future.

Although we do not want to increase our dependence on oil sands or other carbon-intensive sources of oil in the long term, the construction of the Keystone pipeline is only a small part of our national oil dependency issue. Blocking the Keystone pipeline could maintain the current level of dependence, but the U.S. already imports 20 percent of its oil from Canada, and 47 percent of the crude oil produced in Canada come from oil sands. The Keystone pipeline could increase U.S. imports of Canadian oil by over 500,000 barrels per day, but within the context of the larger 19 million barrels of oil the U.S. consumes per day, this only makes up a small fraction of national oil consumption.

Instead of focusing so much attention on the singular mission of blocking this pipeline, we must think of how we can put the nation in the best economic position to end its dependence on oil. In the context of confronting and mitigating climate change, oil is one of the hardest areas to address because it is hard to find cheap, clean alternatives. Although oil only accounts for 20 percent of energy use in the U.S., it comprises 95 percent of energy consumption in the transportation sector.  The transportation sector almost exclusively relies on oil products such as gasoline and diesel because they are easier to transport at low costs. Alternatives such as natural gas have to be compressed into liquid natural gas before they can be transported through a pipeline.  Electric and hybrid vehicles may solve this problem, but gas powered vehicles are still cheaper and therefore the natural consumer choice.  Although the continued adoption of oil infrastructure such as the Keystone pipeline will not help clear the channels for new technology to develop, it is also unfortunately clear that the economics of alternatives to oil will have to be more affordable before they are widely adopted in the U.S.

Therefore, as a nation we must develop an environment where renewable technology will be affordable and competitive with fossil fuels. If the pipeline was used as a means through which we can maintain a steady supply of cheap oil while simultaneously developing competitive renewable options and closing down polluting infrastructure such as a coal plants, it may be far better received.

Currently, all environmentalists see is Obama’s empty promises of setting a course of action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions drastically by 2050 while on the ground he is supporting the plan to build this highly polluting pipeline. However, if the Obama Administration were to publicize a plan of how they could use transition pieces like this pipeline to meet their energy goals, the national reaction would be far different. The construction of Keystone, therefore, will only be “game over” if the administration treats it as a stepping-stone for further exploration of carbon intensive oil resources instead of a piece of our national transition off of oil.

So yes, we should stop the Keystone pipeline as long as the government presents its construction without the context of a clear plan of action to reduce emissions. However, we must also pressure the government to take aggressive steps in developing the scenario through which the nation’s future emissions will be reduced as planned.

Elizabeth W. Pike '15, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Holworthy Hall.