Scientists to Congressional leadership: Do not revive the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline

Today, a group of fifteen scientists wrote to Congressional leadership to once again express their concerns about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Canada’s tar sands underlie an area of the Boreal forest the size of Florida. Big Oil is already extracting around 1.5 million barrels per day of this dirty fuel, which causes 20% more global warming pollution than conventional oil on a life-cycle basis (i.e. comparing everything from extraction all the way through to combustion). The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would require an increase in tar sands production in order to be able to fill the pipeline – and would send a signal to industry that it is game on for tar sands expansion.

The scientists had written to President Obama over the summer, and wrote that they were glad that President Obama rejected the permit for Keystone XL, but are concerned about Congress trying to revive the pipeline because “The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, one that it does not make sense to exploit… Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control.” The full letter is pasted below.

You can also take action to help stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline by writing to your Senators at www.stoptar.org. Please take action before 12 pm Eastern time tomorrow. And if you don’t live in one of the fifty U.S. states, you can take action with 350.org here. 

       Photo credit: Peter Essick/National Geographic.

Feb 13, 2012 

Dear Senators Reid and McConnell, and Representatives Boehner and Pelosi,

We are researchers at work on the science of climate change and allied fields. Last summer, we called on President Obama to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s tar sands. We were gratified to see that he did so, and since some in Congress are seeking to revive this plan, we wanted to restate the case against it.

The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, one that it does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy and water to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline that would dramatically increase exploitation of this resource.

When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the earth’s climate and its oceans. Now that we do know, it’s imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy—and that we leave the tar sands in the ground.

We can say categorically that this pipeline is not in the nation’s, or the planet’s best interest.

Sincerely,

James Hansen, Research Scientist, The International Research Institute for Climate and Society, The Earth Institute, Columbia University

John Abraham, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of St. Thomas

Jason Box, Associate Professor, Department of Geography Atmospheric Sciences Program, Researcher at Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University

Ken Caldeira, Senior Scientist, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution

Peter Gleick, President and Co-founder, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security

Richard A. Houghton, Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center

Ralph Keeling, Director, Scripps CO2 Program, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute

Michael E. Mann, Professor of Meteorology, Director, Earth System Science Center, The Pennsylvania State University

James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University

Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School and Department of Geosciences, Princeton University

Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Louis Block Professor in the Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago

Steve Running, Professor of Ecology, Director of Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group, Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana

Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

George M. Woodwell, Founder, Director Emeritus, and Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Research Center