Keystone Oil Pipeline approved!

The energy situation in this country is a challenge, right? Oil and gas prices are going up even as reserves are going down. We're trying tracking, but it's not going well for the environment. The promise of greener technologies like wind and solar has been slow in getting support/funding, and therefore slow in growing as something that is filling that energy void.

So, what are we, as a nation, to do to address this energy crisis? How about we bring down oil from Canada? The Keystone Oil Pipeline project has been around since 2007 when it was first proposed by a private sector oil company. It now involves more than 10 states, two countries, and countless regulatory commissions, all in addition to the various private companies that will make money off of this. It had run into many objections along the way, but the one that was truly holding it up were environmental objections in Nebraska. Well, those objections are gone, and the Nebraska governor has now approved a new version of the plan.

My reaction to this is pretty simple: seriously? We are willing to put more than five years of argument into making this project happen to extract oil from tar sands, then ship it across the entire United States, just so we can keep using oil? Folks, there is clearly a much-needed message to extract from this situation.

Can't we allocate this energy over to something that will ensure a more long-term energy solution? We can have endless arguments about whether it is legal, whether it is environmentally damaging, and whether it is going to justify the costs. But none of those things are important, in my mind.

This is emblematic of a larger shift that I think needs to happen in the national decision matrix. Rather than putting significant resources into using a resource that is running out, getting more expensive, and a pollutant, why don't we put that same energy and vigor into a resource, say the sun, that is infinite, getting less expensive to harness and has a much lower rate of pollution?

Image courtesy of Arthur Chapman via flickr.