On the Waxman-Whitehouse initiative, and Keystone XL: If the "movement" succeeds in persuading Obama he needs to spend some of his limited political capital by refusing to approve Keystone XL, there will be less political capital available to accomplish whatever comes of this Waxman-Whitehouse initiative. And the result of no Keystone XL crossing the border may only be the discovery by US activists that Canada can and will move its oil through its own territory to its own ports.
The "movement" might accomplish more by changing its political line from "it's game over for the climate unless the US border is closed to tar sand oil" to something more coherent. Eg: the "movement" could modify its opposition to Keystone XL by saying it could accept the pipeline IF the permit required tar sand oil entering the US to meet some new EPA standard limiting the CO2 emitted while it was produced. That EPA standard could be for all oil imported into, or even all oil sold in the US. The limit, initially, could be something like "less than or equal to US average oil production", or "less than or equal to US unconventional oil production", or "less than or equal to average US imported oil" etc. A regulation subject to improvement as political will develops, if political will develops, could prove to be more effective than merely prohibiting Keystone XL. The Keystone XL effort as it stands, given Obama's fresh mandate and inaugural speech declaration on climate, seems too limited and ineffectual. The rhetoric circulating to support it is increasing climate confusion. The risk, that pressure to eliminate the EPA altogether could become to great to stop, seems much less now than prior to the election. Many in Canada have assumed something like this would be coming eventually and a certain amount of R&D has already been done on how to reduce or compensate for the extra CO2 emitted as tar sand oil is produced. David Keith has an inside view on this. Canadians who are cynical about a US hammer coming down on their tar sand oil which exempts every other oil source in the world including US unconventionally produced oil will have to face a more understandable, fair, and politically salable barrier. Canadians could choose to pioneer carbon capture technology to make their oil salable rather than build the new infrastructure they need to move their oil. The Obama administration would be presented with a better strategy to spend whatever political capital it thinks it has for climate on. On Friday, February 1, 2013 9:02:31 AM UTC-8, Greg Rau wrote: > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
