by Arjun Walia, Collective Evolution
Keystone XL, the tar sands pipeline that connects Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries and carries nearly 1 million barrels of tar sands oil per day across the U.S. to be refined, exported, and burned, has just leaked 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota.
This comes after a massive protest gathered thousands upon thousands of people, including CE team members, in North Dakota, near the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to oppose the pipeline. Peaceful protestors and water protectors were threatened and physically abused by a militarized police force working for the corporation.
It was truly an unbelievable sight. The pipeline threatens a water supply upon which many people depend. Yet officials have said, according to the Guardian, they “do not believe the leak in TransCanada Corp’s pipeline . . . affected drinking water.”
This type of statement is what we have come to expect from corporate representatives. However, the reality of the matter is that pipelines always leak, and they always cause significant damage at some point or another, most of which goes underreported. So why risk it?
Oil is completely unnecessary, and there really is no justification for its use. We have solar, wind, and magnetic power, all of which could easily replace this entire industry. The only problem is, a small group of corporations and the people that run them dominate the energy industry. Even though new technologies have been around for decades, they have yet to see t he light of day.
It’s not too difficult to see through the false claims that were used to justify the pipeline’s construction. Before the pipeline was completed, for example, the corporation claimed it would be “the safest and most advanced oil pipeline operation in North America.”
As a result of this recent spill, the pipeline was shut down yesterday, and it’s possible the leak might have affected surface water bodies as well as threatened certain drinking water systems. According to Brain Walsh, an environmental scientist manager at the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which has dispatched a staff member to the site, however, such contamination is unlikely.
We can only hope he’s right, because we’ve seen this happen many times in the past.
The human race has so much potential, and this world we live in can change. We do not need to use oil to generate energy; in fact, the oil industry is being used to “create more jobs” and further push along the agenda of “globalization,” one which continues to destroy our planet for the purpose of economic advancement.
Drastic changes are needed, and the backbone of the global economy, oil, needs to transition into the clean energy options that are available in abundance today.
One great example, out of many, is NOCA clean energy, who have manufactured a generator that Collective Evolution has vetted for ourselves. Few people are aware of the fact that solar and wind energy technologies are actually quite primitive. That being said, they are more than enough to power our world and shift it completely toward clean energy.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump issued a federal permit for the project last March, even though it was rejected by the Obama administration. Since then, it’s received approval from the Canadian province of Alberta, as well as Nebraska.
This is what happens when corporations have so much influence over governments, which are supposed to represent the voice of the people. There were and are millions of people across the nation demanding more care be given to the environment and calling for an end to these pipelines, yet they continue to go through.
Do we really live in a democracy if such things, which defy the will of the people, keep happening?
