People of faith are called to protect Creation and to serve one another. The Keystone XL Pipeline would facilitate the extraction and marketing of the world’s dirtiest oil, expedite destruction of old growth forest and First Nations land in Canada, and endanger farms, water, and homes in the states through which it would travel. There is no justification for allowing this project to go forward.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is once again in the national news, as the State Department released a “massive” environmental review on the project Friday. The study concluded that neither blocking nor approving the northern section of the pipeline would have a “significant” impact on greenhouse gas emissions, because the tar sands oil will be mined, it says, with or without the pipeline.
Even though this seems to be very bad news for those of us who care about the earth and climate change, it’s not over yet. The White House has made it clear that they are still considering all options.
In an interview with CBS news on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough reiterated the President’s position that he will make the decision on Keystone dependent upon whether or not it would “significantly exacerbate what is a significant climate change crisis we face in this country.”
In the President’s State of the Union address last week we were glad to hear him say “The debate is settled: Climate change is a fact; and when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world with new sources of energy I want to be able to say ‘yes, we did!’”
New York Interfaith Power and Light will encourage people of faith to participate in the upcoming public comment period on the Keystone Pipeline. And our national IPL has already asked the President, in a letter signed by 150 clergy leaders, to reject this pipeline on moral grounds. We will continue to oppose this pipeline because mining tar sands oil will drastically worsen climate change. Click here to tell the President to oppose this dangerous project.