Business Leaders, Scientists, Economists and Ordinary People Reject the Keystone XL

On March 7th 200 business leaders joined over 2 million people to tell President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone
XL tar sands pipeline. Exactly one month later (April 7th) more than 100 scientists and economists sent a letter saying that the Keystone is not in the national interest and they further demanded that it must be stopped.

Not only will rejecting the pipeline send a powerful symbolic message, it will achieve the all important objective of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If it is allowed to go through, the keystone would ship 830,000 barrels per day of carbon intensive tar sands from Alberta to refineries
on the US Gulf Coast. According to some scientific assessments if the tar sands are exploited to their full capacity this will mean “game over” for efforts to address climate change.

As of the end of the 30 day comment period on March 7th, the State Department
had received more than 2 million comments from American and from people all over
the world calling for rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The Keystone XL would lead to an expansion of tar sands production, and this
would significantly increase GHGs. It therefore fails the climate test that
President Obama set for the pipeline.

The public has repeatedly protested against the pipelines, in total there
have been more than 280
vigils organized in almost all 50 states.

On March 7 more than 200 business owners and venture capitalists sent
a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry stating that the proposed Keystone XL
pipeline is not in US economic interests.  The letter states that the
costs of the pipeline far outweigh the benefits. They further state that the low
cost of ferrying the tar sands by pipe will increase the exploitation of this
dirty source of fossil fuels. A point which squarely refutes the State
Department’s contention that the oil sands will be exploited with or without the
pipeline.

As explained in the letter, “Markets rely on both price and policy signals
when making investment decisions…While increasing prices for crude oil have
driven interest in further development of tar sands, this development is not
inevitable without continued high prices and policy support.”

The letter was sent out by NRDC affiliate E2, a non-profit, non-partisan
group of business leaders and others who promote sound environmental policies
that drive economic growth. They claim that their members have collectively
created more than 570,000 jobs while managing more than $175 billion in venture
and private-equity capital.

The letter is signed by prominent members of Silicon Valley including those
involved with cleantech as well as executives at Apple, Oracle, Facebook and Google. Other notable signatories include Bob Fisher, the
chairman of GAP and Tedd Saunders, the operator of East Coast
hotels.

The most startling claim in the letter is the
suggestion that the Keystone XL will cost the American
people $100 billion over its lifetime.

As pointed out in the most recent AR5 report,
climate change is already costing the world’s economies billions of dollars and
leading to resource shortages and other disruptions including those attributable
to extreme weather events.

The April 7th letter from leaders in science and
economics tells the Obama administration that we must tackle climate change and the first step is to stop using “disproportionately
carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands bitumen” which is 17% more greenhouse gas emissions than
conventionally produced fuels over their full lifecycle.

The letter points to significant air and water pollution, heath risks as well as dangers associated with transporting oil by pipe. It goes on to say that “over the 50-year expected lifespan of the pipeline, the total emissions
from Keystone XL could amount to as much as 8.4 billion metric tons CO2e. These
are emissions that can and should be avoided with a transition to clean energy.”

Some of the signatories include

• Dr. Philip W. Anderson, who won the 1977 Nobel
  Prize in Physics
• Dr. Kenneth J. Arrow, who won the 1972
  Nobel Prize in Economics
• Dr. James McCarthy, Dr. Richard Norgaard, and Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Fellows of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Dr. Mark Jaccard,
  Dr. Lawrence Dill, and Dr. Mark Winston, Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) including . 
• Dr. Gretchen Daily, Drs. Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Dr. George Woodwell,
  Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Michael Oppenheimer. Winners of Heinz
  Awards in the Environment
• Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Dr. George Woodwell, Gretchen Daily, winners of the Volvo Environment
  Prize
• Dr. David Suzuki, a
  renowned geneticist and science broadcaster.
• Dr. Mark Jaccard, who has
  contributed a large body of research regarding the design and application of
  energy-economy models that assess the effectiveness of sustainable energy and
  climate policies, including serving as a convening lead author for the Global Energy Assessment; and
• Dr. David Keith, 2006 winner of Canadian Geographic’s
  “Environmentalist of the Year” – who is both a Harvard Professor and President
  of a Calgary, Alberta company that works on ways to capture carbon dioxide
  directly from the atmosphere.

Business leaders, scientists, economists and average people from around the world are speaking with a shared voice that urges the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL. The President is expected to make a decision on the pipeline in the coming months.