An Update, And An Opportunity To Say "I Told You So" ...

... when it comes to the Keystone XL pipeline and its predecessor.

By far, the single biggest argument against this monstrosity, apart from the fact that building it is not going to halt the end of the fossil-fuel age, us a problem common to all pipelines.  They leak.  Especially if they are not properly maintained, or constructed in the first place.  And when they leak, they release dangerous chemicals not only into sensitive natural landscapes, but even into areas with significant residential populations.  And, worst of all in the case of the original pipeline and its offspring, the Keystone XL, they leak oil from tar sands, the most toxic and dangerous oil from the standpoint of environmental and human contact.

None of this has ever mattered to the oil industry and the politicians that love it (and who get showered back with love, in the form of campaign contributions).  "Keystone is a job-producing machine!"  (It isn't.)  "Keystone will ensure our energy independence!"  (It won't; all of the oil flowing through it will ultimately end up overseas.)  And, worst of all, especially in light of recent events, "Keystone is being built so as to be absolutely safe!  Leaks, shmeaks!"

I'd like to think that this recent leak would be strike three, and that Keystone XL is finally put out of our misery.  But, as that well-known anti-Semitic Baltimorean, H.L. Mencken once wrote, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.  Even after this fiasco, an administrative board in Nebraska approved the final leg of the Keystone XL route through its state, although they did specify an alternative route that will require TransCanada, the pipeline's owners/builders, to use land they have not already acquired.  This apparently throws the pipeline's entire future into doubt, as it increases the cost of building the pipeline even as failing world oil prices sabotage the likelihood that TransCanada will ever profit from Keystone XL even if it is built.

Perhaps the good folks of Nebraska were attempting a sneaky form of sabotage of their own, rendering a decision that outwardly appeases political interests in a heavily Republican state, while effectively laying the economic groundwork for the entire Keystone XL project to collapse under the weight of the rancid, calculating thinking that launched it in the first place. Perhaps they remembered that their state is part of America's breadbasket, and that it would be social and economic suicide to endanger that breadbasket for the benefit of a Canadian company that wants to sell oil to China.  Perhaps they realized none of this, but did a good thing anyway.  It happens; life can be charmingly random like that.

In any case, regardless of why they did what they did, I hope it destroys Keystone XL.  Not just because it would tweak the noses of Donald Trump and other Republicans, but also because it would prove that, despite the election of Trump to the contrary, history hasn't lost its ability to destroy bad ideas.