I still think the most powerful argument against the pipeline by a country mile is climate change. The effects of an oil spill from the pipeline or a tanker are local, pristine or not, and a spill is merely possible, not inevitable.
Increasing the output of the tar sands on the other hand will make our already growing problem with climate change far worse and with the consent of Canadians if we keep relying on the goose they lays the tar eggs. We can all stand to lose a lot of money by limiting the output, but it is the single most important thing any of us can do to help curb the consequences that are already dire in the best case scenarios. Taking this much carbon from the ground and putting it in the air and oceans is insane.
This alone makes a spill in the mountains or Douglas Channel irrelevant and not worth quibbling over.
I am a hypocrite like the rest of us and use gas too, but that doesn't mean I can't see the obvious. Oil is a crutch and stopping us from innovating the solution, so let's limit the worst of it and let supply and demand take over from there.
I agree 100% with you here, but there is one problem that keeps bugging me the longer I think about it, and I think I have already posted something similar in another thread a while back.
The issue I begin to see even here in Europe is a mix of various issues all related:
1) A lot of people are climate-change tired, and quite a lot still does not give a damn. A lot of people change their consuming behaviour (grassroots like), buy fair trade stuff, grow their own veggies and the like - while others do not care, and probably never will.
2) The multinational corporations, the "global players" work alongside a lot of politicians who are in charge at the moment, for this term, the next couple of years - and these do not really care as well.
Lobbyism is common far and wide, be it when it comes to improving agriculture, economics or the issue with energy. All are related, and the question I still have is -
Do the powers that be really care about our sentiments? I am afraid they do not, and I have no idea what to do about it, because violence or anger is simply not the solution as has been shown thoughrout history.
"You don't learn from experience. You learn from reflecting on the experience."
- Kristen Ulmer