I'm a little delayed on this, but the Keystone decision probably won't happen until after November elections. In that case we'll see whether my prediction that it will go down, if delayed that long, gets verified. Roger Pielke Jr's prediction of approval in February 2013 just keeps getting wronger.
The best political outcome for Democrats is to never approve or disapprove the pipeline, but there's got to be a limit to delay (I think). Still, delay's a partial victory, and it's that much more time for the Canadians to come to their senses and elect a non-idiot as PM.
Not much sense in the first link to Bill McKibben being upset about the delay, unless he figures it's not really about the pipeline at all but about organizing a movement to either build on a victory or to lead the charge against a wrong decision. Hard to organize a movement over some governmental thing that just keeps being nebulous.
I still think that no matter what, this will be part of the 2016 presidential election.
Right - because it's so much better to ship oil in rail cars than pipelines.
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about shipping by rail is that there are limits on how much can move, and development will slow down. That puts a lower long-term cap on the thing, assuming we're sane enough to stop burning the dirtiest and most expensive oil there is. If we can't figure that out (if we really do just carry on burning everything we can produce), then shame on all of us.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Re. the idiot--
we'll do the best we can, but in southern Alberta (as our previous MP once said) the Conservatives could run a hay bale and win.
"Conservatives could run a hay bale and win."
ReplyDeleteI'd happily vote for a hay bale over about 2/3 of the conservative MPs
Sorry Brian, non idiots are scarce in Canadian politics.
ReplyDeleteWe have to work with what we've got, and right now my rule is ABC (anyone but a ...).
ReplyDeleteSo the US (presumed) non-idiot, is unable to operated independently from a Canadian idiot?
ReplyDeleteThe post-midterm election timing of the Keystone decision has been chosen precisely to not effect that result (which will be bad enough anyway) and to allow the maximum amount of time for "good" Democrats to forget about it.
John Puma
It's said that in a genuine democracy, the people get the government they deserve. I used to think that about the U.S., but I'm more and more doubtful that the "genuine democracy" condition is being met.
ReplyDeleteApropos of that, the New York Times is running one of their "discussions", Do the Rich Call the Shots?. Nobody's said anything startling there yet, either.