Keystone XL Op-Ed Misses the Point
By Hannah Solomon-Strauss on 05/24/2013 @ 12:00 PM
In mid-May, Rep. Lamar Smith (TX) wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post. In his piece, Rep. Smith argues against regulations to control the amount of pollution we can pump into our air. The op-ed seems reasonable at first glance: inflated rhetoric likely does get in the way of substantial policymaking on this issue; this is a call toward acting reasonable and sensible. But when it comes to policy proposals, Rep. Smith gives us nothing but the status quo. It is one thing to have a sound debate about the role of government in protecting our communities; it is quite another to have a debate about facts that have long been settled. Unfortunately, the latter is where the Congressman’s argument ends up.
The truth is that climate scientists have been remarkably accurate in their predictions. The truth is that we can already see the effects of climate disruption; 2012 was the warmest year on record and featured several of the most destructive weather events in history. The truth is that 97% of scientists say that climate change is happening.
There are three instances where the congressman’s arguments are misleading at best: the numbers on the Keystone pipeline, the accuracy of climate science, and the impact of climate change on communities home and abroad.
First, Rep. Smith argues that Keystone will create jobs and will not add pollution to the atmosphere—and, as a result, the Obama administration should quit delaying the approval process. He is mistaken on both counts. A March review by the company constructing the pipeline revealed that Keystone could create as few as 35 permanent jobs. Further, burning the oilsands transported by Keystone will cause a 36 percent increase from current production—the equivalent of more than 4.6 million cars—not including increased emissions from upgrading and refining that oil.
Second, climate science is settled. It is not in doubt that the climate is changing and that we’re the cause. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human activity. A survey examined 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers written by 29,000 scientists over the past 20 years. Only 83 of those 12,000 papers—0.7 percent—disputed that climate change is caused by human activity.
A recently released paper confirms the accuracy of climate predictions.The paper “show[s] that [climate] scientists accurately predicted the warming experienced in the past decade… to within a few hundredths of a degree.” This consensus and accuracy cannot be called “uncertain” as Rep. Smith does.
(Note that this is different from the argument that any individual extreme weather event is caused by climate change, which is nearly impossible to prove; this is the argument that climate change is a sustained phenomenon that happens over years and increases in severity).
Finally, climate change is already affecting everyday life around the world. More than 180 native communities in Alaska could be forced to move from their homes due to rising sea levels. A report by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicted that the highest point in the village could be underwater by 2017; there is no way to protect the village in place. These towns “are flooding and losing land because of the ice melt that is part of the changing climate.”
Closer to Rep. Smith’s home, a Cargill meat plant in Plainview, TX has shut down due to drought conditions in the town. This closure isn’t just a loss of jobs and livelihood and community—though it is all of those things. In the case of some families, it is literally a life-and-death issue; some, told they were going to have to move, instead attempted suicide. Drought, flooding, and increasingly severe weather patterns are driving conflict and strife in Somalia, Syria, and myriad other communities around the globe. That unrest in turn threatens the security of the United States.
Rep. Smith says climate regulation is a job issue. He’s right. We cannot have jobs or stable communities if we do not address the effects of climate change. But it’s also a human rights issue and a security issue. Without policies to protect the only Earth we’ve got, many more communities are going to look like Newtok, Plainview, or Tel Abyad. The United States is going to be threatened by increasingly unstable states, rocked by climate change, or we’ll be dragged into conflicts around the world as we work to protect our interests and allies from theincreasingly severe effects of climate change.
There is a legitimate policy debate to be had about the proper form of climate regulations, but Rep. Smith does this debate a disservice by posturing with misleading arguments or incorrect facts. The fact is the climate is changing and humans are the cause; scientists are certain of this. The fact is we have the power to same communities here and abroad from strife. I hope Rep. Smith will join those of us working to shape policy and legislation to confront climate disruption that threatens us all.
