Over 400 protestors have been thrown in jail in the United States for protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline deal, which apparently has been recently given a go in Canada, though it remains to be formally accepted or rejected by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Obama.

The pipeline would run from Alberta, where the precious bitumen is being extracted, to the Gulf of Mexico, passing through seven or eight U.S. states – that’s over 1,700 miles, and would carry nearly 1 million barrels per day.

The fight is well known: Cheap Oil vs. The Environment.  In fact the video shows the two interviewees – Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and author, and Robert Bryce from the Manhattan institute – going back and forth on that very issue.

The protests have been going on for the last two weeks of August, and sadly not much has been heard of it in the news.  The protestors are demanding that Obama stand up to Big Oil since he doesn’t need the Congress’ approval to reject the pipeline as he does for other matters related to the Climate. 

The Pipeline is sure to have leaks and other types of damages: this is a reality that both panellists agree on.  However, Bryce thinks that these inevitable problems are what we have to accept in order to live as we do.  It is his opinion that we get that because there is “no such a thing as a free lunch.”  McKibben combats this argument, suggesting that merely accepting destruction to the environment to continue our standards of living is not the only answer. 

The arguments are not new and the fight itself is not exactly fresh.  But as it is evident, and as the video points out, the weather has been getting extremely erratic in the last year particularly.  Why is this so?  Are there ways to combat it or should we all just resign to the chaos to come in order to continue ‘living comfortably’?

Watch and please share your thoughts…Mother Earth may depend on it!

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
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