Non quia aliquid consequendum

The link is to another of the inevitable elitist out-of-touch Hollywood liberals who need a bandwagon to jump on:

"I want to add my body and my voice to the thousands of others who are laying themselves on the line and saying,'No, we do not want to be party to this incredibly destructive path. We're becoming more dependent on fossil fuels and now we're becoming dependent on the most dirty of the fossil fuels, which is the tarsands fuel'," Hannah said.

TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline would run from Alberta through Nebraska to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. It would double the capacity of the existing Keystone pipeline.

Proponents say the expansion would create thousands of jobs in both Canada and the U.S. and would help reduce U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Environmental activists say the pipeline is too risky and that extracting oil from the oilsands creates far too much greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, the U.S. State Department released a report that said the proposed pipeline would pose no major risks to the environment and would not necessarily spur further oilsands production in Alberta.

There is nothing in life without some risk (title, in classy and hopefully correct Latin thanks to Google Translate), and no, I'm not talking about getting arrested for a sit-in against something you don't like. We are indeed "dependant on fossil fuels", but this will not change by hamstringing our productivity and prosperity. I have gone over the "alternative" energy problem before, but in short Ms Hanna has no idea what is involved in keeping the modern world's lights on if she thinks that all of our energy can be produced by "solar, wind, geothermal, microhydro" and any other pie-in-the-sky "green" options.

Those listed are only good in specific locations and/or on small scale. Solar and wind farms are as much, I'd even say more, of a blight on the landscape as any (decent) pipeline and are not reliable sources of power. Geothermal only works very locally, and you can bet that any large-scale geothermal project (in, say, Yellowstone Park) would have the Green movement's useful idiots chaining themselves to drill rigs. As for microhydro, great if you have your own river, but how many people does that apply to?

Rich people can afford whatever low-efficiency power scheme tickles their fancy; the rest of us need what works, is proven to work, will continue to work or (the future) will work better than what we already have. That last one includes "scary" things like Liquid Fluoride Reactors which will do everything we need it to do, and do it more safely than existing nuclear plants or even hydrocarbon refineries. I would have one in my backyard, or at least where I could see it from there (it's still a powerplant after all) but the Greens would shit themselves at the name of it alone.

In the meantime, the USA needs to get back on its' feet economically and politically, and affordable secure energy is one brick on that path. Celebrities making responsible, informed announcements/actions would help in a small way too but fat chance of that; the sensible ones seem to just keep their opinions to themselves. Cutting the size of their government by about 50% would help that immensely, but that is another post.