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Oil Pipeline Protesters ArrestedPosted on Aug 24, 2011
Hundreds of environmental activists have shown up outside the White House this week—prepared to risk arrest—to protest a proposed transnational oil pipeline project they say will do more harm than good. More than 200 people have already been arrested. The protest began Aug. 20 and demonstrators intend to continue through Labor Day while the State Department puts the finishing touches on a final environmental impact statement on the proposal that it is expected to release by the end of the month. More than 2,000 people signed up to participate during the 14-day protest, with the bulk of the demonstrating planned for Saturday. The proposed 1,661-mile pipeline—the Keystone XL—would carry as much as 900,000 barrels of oil a day from tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas. But what really has environmentalists concerned is that not only does the type of oil extracted from tar sands have a carbon output that is 20 percent higher than more conventional oil supplies, an analysis of the proposed pipeline has estimated that about 91 “significant spills” would occur as a result of the Keystone XL over the next 50 years. And that doesn’t even begin to go into the damage that would be done to air and water supplies at the extraction site. —BF
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By ardee, August 24, 2011 at 2:30 pm Link to this comment
Extraction of oil from tar sands is a rather intensive and polluting process, expensive as well. Crossing so many essential waterways seems more than a bit dangerous as well.
If we are coming down to the difficut to extract oil fields is this not a clue that alternative energy sources might be necessary in the not too distant future?
But first lets allow the oil companies to wring every dollar of profit out of our imperiled planet. Hey,Barak, guess which finger I’m holding up!
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