Climate Sunday: What's in the Pipeline?

Today, there was a 1000+ person protest against the KXL pipeline in front of the White House. The above photo shows a staged die-in, with the black tarp representing an oil spill. Or tar sands bitumin diluted with a proprietary blend of whatever, to be a little more exact (although not as exact as we might like, no?). About 400 people (mostly college students--and good for them)  were arrested.  I've blogged about the seriousness of the Keystone XL pipeline before, but I do want to reiterate it--this should not be the future of energy development in the country because we need to move away from fossil fuels, because the pipeline cuts through a significant and essential part of the US geography, and because it basically adds up to Canada sending their tar sands bitumen through the US to sell to China to create practically no jobs in the US and risk the safety of the aquifer that services our breadbasket. It might come across like a tree-hugging spotted owl kind of issue--but it really does have ramifications for our future.

Speaking of pipelines, you know who has  geographically significant pipelines? Ukraine.  The economy of Ukraine is jacked over in part due to reliance on Russian natural gas, and it just so happens Gazprom would be interested in control of Ukraine's pipeline system that connects their nat gas to the rest of Europe.

Fossils fuels are not just a mess in terms of local pollution and global warming. As a commodity that has to be traded and transported, they represent a political issue of no small impact.