The Keystone Cons and the Day of Reckoning

It was a stirring sight.Tens of thousands of protesters braving the freezing cold to try to stop the planet from burning.

Demanding that Obama kill the Keystone XL pipeline.

Canada’s carbon-intensive oilsands industry was the guest of dishonour in Washington on Sunday, where the largest in a series of nationwide climate rallies demanded President Barack Obama call a halt to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Although I HATED the way the New York Times framed this story. 

President Obama faces a knotty decision in whether to approve the much-delayed Keystone oil pipeline: a choice between alienating environmental advocates who overwhelmingly supported his candidacy or causing a deep and perhaps lasting rift with Canada.

Making it sound like if Obama does the right thing he would alienate Canada and the Canadian people, instead of just the Harper government and the Big Oil pigs in Alberta.

When the Con regime does not represent the views of most Canadians, Big Oil is as Canadian as a three dollar bill, and most decent Canadians are on the side of all those Americans who marched today...



And as for the decent people of Alberta, they should be on their side too, because the out of control development of the oil sands is not only tanking their economy, and torching the planet.

It's also threatening to poison them.

Tailings ponds from oilsands production are leaking and contaminating Alberta’s groundwater, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in an internal memo obtained by Postmedia News. 

The memo, released through access to information legislation, said that federal government scientists, including Quebec City-based research geoscientist Martine Savard, had discovered evidence of the contamination in new research that rejected longstanding claims that toxins in the region of the Athabasca River were coming from natural sources.

And their children:

Environment Canada describes groundwater contamination as a serious problem since aquifers can remain contaminated for decades or centuries, leaking into lakes, rivers or streams, while potentially creating costly water supply problems.

And what would they tell those children? How would they explain to them that they were born with birth defects, or were doomed to die young, because their parents wanted to get rich in a hurry. Even if it hurt them, even if it helped destroy the planet.

I don't know how anybody could ever explain that betrayal eh? 

But I do know this. The final battle against climate change is underway in North America. Obama knows that the judgment of the ages depends on what he does next.  

And as for the Con regime it's on the wrong side of history, cruising for a beautiful bruising, and looking and sounding increasingly DESPERATE.

For who could forget the ghastly sight of old Joe Oliver assuring Canadians that they could one day drink from the tailings ponds... 



No wonder him and the rest of the Harper gang hate scientists so much, and are always trying to muzzle them.

The federal scientists from Natural Resources Canada who did the study were not immediately available for interviews, a spokeswoman said. 

Yup. It was always going to be about the environment. It was always going to be the hill the Cons died on. Or the tarry swamp they drowned in. For what other issue is more important than the future of the world?  

And the people of Alberta should always remember this; while they were getting filthy rich, and the rest of Canada was getting poorer and poorer thanks to the Dutch Disease, we were also fighting for them and their children. 

And so were these people in Washington today...



Time to let those Americans know that they aren't hurting us, they're helping us. Time to let them them know we're on their side.

Time to let the Cons know that their time is over. 

The Day of Reckoning is finally here.

And the planet demands their destruction...

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