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The Gadfly was going to wait until the passing of the New Year's festivities before posting about this, but since just about every other blogger and their mothers have already brought the subject up, to hell with it.
Besides - it will give you dear readers something to think about this evening while you are twirling your noise makers and eyeing the last few potential shots in that bottle of Patron Silver that is sitting unattended on a table in the corner off the dance floor:
Take it away Charlie Pierce:
Fans of our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, come into the new year with the hope that the administration will be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet as it green-lights the death funnel that will bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the environmental moonscape of northern Alberta to the refineries of Texas, trying (and likely failing) to avoid bringing permanent goopy desolation to the country's most valuable farmland along the way. Paul Ryan took a short break a couple of weeks ago from discovering poor people to try and make approval of the death-funnel part of his overall program of zombie-eyed granny starving.
It's important to remember that just producing this cancer juice is as deadly a process as shipping it down through Nebraska is.
Mercury wafting out of oilsands operations is impacting an area - or "bull's-eye" - that extends for about 19,000 square kilometres in northeast Alberta, according to federal scientists. Levels of the potent neurotoxin found near the massive industrial operation have been found to be up to 16 times higher than "background" levels for the region, says Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who recently reported the findings at an international toxicology conference. Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage. It is such a concern that Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed an international treaty in October pledging Canada to further reduce releases to the environment.
The problem with this kind of thing is that we always catch up with the real damage after it already has occurred. Environmentalism has become a reactive matter of simply trying to keep up.http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/More_Poison_In_The_Pipeline
**Disclosure: The Gadfly has to admit that he previously announced that he has abandoned most all of his hope of ever having a sane, fact-based discussion with American conservatives on the subject of environmental protection and the importance of such to the survival of the human race. To the point that even off-hand mentioning that stated scientific fact that "Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage," would simply be viewed by them as a beneficial cost of doing business, which is actually quite a worrying state of affairs considering it is a view being expressed by the very same people who's brains, if damaged much further, would put them in to a non-reversible vegetative state.
The Gadfly offers an alternative proposal. Let us create a second proposed route for this pipeline. The current proposed route has the death-funnel snaking it's way through a lot of pristine wilderness and fairly unspoiled rural areas in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, and not too unsurprisingly, across a few Native American reservations (just because it's so easy to fuck over a bunch of helpless, destitute indigenous peoples who have zero voice in their country's affairs - dontcha know?).
Anyhow - consider now - the Gadfly's proposed route, which has that motherfucking pipeline running right through downtown Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Dick Cheney's chosen home of record) then doing a 90 degree right turn and barreling it's way in to the conservative enclave of Boise, Idaho, then a dog-leg down into Nevada, in to Las Vegas right under the glitzy Vegas Strip (hey - they can add it to the betting windows - give odds as to when it's going to explode in a mushroom fireball), then in to California, right through fucking Beverly Hills along the entire route of Rodeo Drive, then down through conservative Orange County, and then in to just as conservative San Diego county. After that it shoots straight across to Phoenix, Arizona, right underneath supreme asshole Sheriff Joe Arpaio's police HQ, continuing straight across New Mexico until it arrives in Texas. Now when it arrives in Texas, The Gadfly feels that, since all these fucking asshole Texas conservatives just loves them some oil industry money, then they won't object to having this pipeline run through their own home towns and districts, even if it has to criss-cross the state north and south, east and west a dozen times, before it finally connects with it's current, and final leg of the route, straight down in to the Houston/Port Arthur area.
Let's put both the KeystoneXL Corporation's proposed route and The Gadfly's proposed route up to a national vote by ALL of the American people. Whaddy'a say? Hmmmm?
Of course The Gadfly is just being a facetious and annoying sonofabitch and devil's advocate here, but he damn well guarantees that his proposal would have a pretty fair chance of winning and if it did, you can be fucking certain that there would be some pretty pissed off, wealthy elites braying and moaning across the land. The only difference being that The Gadfly would be sympathetic to their concerns, because he has taken the time to educate himself on this issue and understands the serious nature of the impact that this death funnel can have on our environment and communities.
If only these oil loving bastards would be equally reciprocal with that sympathy for those who are in the current proposed path of the monstrosity, then perhaps a rational conversation could take place. But we know that ain't gonna happen.
Oh - and fuck Obama too if he approves this nightmare in perpetuity.
----TFG
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