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Archive for November 7th, 2015
14 Extreme Weather Events Linked to Climate Change
Posted by EcoWatch: Lorraine Chow on November 7th, 2015
EcoWatch: Even though skeptics would disagree, weather and climate are clearly two different things. We know that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and land use cause global temperatures to rise over long stretches of time, but what effect does that have on the weather today? Well, according to a new study, we can now pin at least 14 extreme weather events in 2014—including heatwaves, drought, wildfires and floods—on climate change. The report, Explaining Extreme...
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Keystone XL wasn’t about jobs or the climate — it was all politics
Posted by FiveThirtyEight: Christie Aschwanden on November 7th, 2015
FiveThirtyEight: During Keystone XL’s seven-year review process, the pipeline’s political significance ballooned far beyond its measurable consequences. In partisan narratives, it was often framed as a fight pitting jobs against the climate and energy security against environmental concerns. In reality, the pipeline stood to make little difference in any of these arenas.
On Friday, President Obama announced that he was rejecting TransCanada’s request to build the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline. It would have...
TransCanada Corp vows to find a way to get Keystone XL built, remains ‘absolutely committed’
Posted by Edmonton Journal: Geoffrey Morgan on November 7th, 2015
Edmonton Journal: TransCanada Corp., the company that has been trying for seven years to build the Keystone XL pipeline, says it is not ready yet to throw in the towel on the massive energy project despite its formal rejection Friday by U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science – rhetoric won out over reason,” TransCanada Corp. president and CEO Russ Girling said in a statement issued shortly after Obama’s White House news conference to announce his decision on the...
Republicans are very mad about Obama’s Keystone XL decision
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 7th, 2015
Mother Jones: Friday morning, after years of heated battles between environmentalists and Republicans, President Barack Obama announced that he is rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline.
In a speech, the president criticized both supporters and detractors of the pipeline from placing too much emphasis on a project that, according to the State Department's analysis, would neither create many jobs nor ruin the climate if approved. Still, reactions to his decision from Republicans in Congress and the 2016 presidential...
TransCanada says to keep pushing Keystone; investors skeptical
Posted by Reuters: Nia Williams on November 7th, 2015
Reuters: TransCanada Corp said on Friday it will keep pressing to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States despite the Obama administration's rejection, but skeptical investors suggested it focus on a controversial all-Canadian alternative.
TransCanada is also developing the Energy East pipeline, designed to move 1.1 million barrels per day of western crude to Canada's East Coast, although it too faces opposition from environmentalists trying to halt industry expansion.
"Although...
Canada was irrelevant in Obama’s decision to reject Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Globe and Mail: Paul Koring on November 7th, 2015
Globe and Mail: Rejecting Keystone XL was not about Canada. It was about U.S. President Barack Obama’s legacy and his credibility. The President has decided that global warming poses an existential threat. And so, for Mr. Obama to head to Paris next month seeking to save the planet after giving the go-ahead to an $8-billion pipeline that has come to symbolize Big Oil digging up some of the world’s most carbon-laden fossil fuel would have looked like hypocrisy. The President’s ability to “make the case to other...
No to Keystone, yes to the planet
Posted by New York Times: Editorial on November 7th, 2015
New York Times: Nearly every mainstream climate scientist has said that a big portion of the fossil fuels now in the ground must remain there if the world is to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. That simple fact lay at the heart of President Obama’s decision on Friday to say no to the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. Stories from Our Advertisers The decision, which ends seven years of legal and political wrangling, was correct, on moral as well as scientific grounds. The pipeline, when completed,...
Obama rejects Keystone XL project, citing U.S. climate leadership
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson on November 7th, 2015
Washington Post: President Obama announced Friday that his administration will not issue a permit for construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, arguing that approval would undermine the U.S. effort to curb greenhouse gases.
“America’s now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Obama said. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that’s the biggest risk we face -- not acting.”
Denying TransCanada Corp. a permit...
A disappointing but long-awaited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on November 7th, 2015
Washington Post: AT LEAST it’s over.
President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, ending an unseemly political dispute marked by activist hysteria, GOP hyperbole, presidential weakness and a general incapability of various sides to see the policy question for what it was: a mundane infrastructure approval that didn’t pose a high threat to the environment but also didn’t promise much economic development. The politicization of this regulatory decision, and the consequent warping of the issue...
Keystone XL pipeline rejection signals US taking lead climate change fight
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 7th, 2015
Guardian: The symbolism was everything. Standing before a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt, the conservationist president who 104 years ago busted the Standard Oil monopoly, Barack Obama made his own tilt at an environmental legacy.
The proposed 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline, which Obama rejected on Friday, would have borne more than 800,000 barrels of exceptionally high-carbon oil from Canada’s tar sands fields in Alberta to refineries on the US gulf coast each day.
It should have been a shoo-in for presidential...