Are projects that make climate change worse -- like the Keystone XL pipeline -- in the national interest? Not if short-term expedience creates long-term disaster. The 1,711-mile long, yard-wide Keystone pipeline would transport oil from underneath Alberta's boreal forests to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. The oil most likely would be exported from there.
One long-term cost of the pipeline is its contribution to raising the Earth's temperature. Burning fossil fuel carried in the pipeline produces carbon dioxide. Dr. James Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, calculates the Keystone pipeline will carry enough tar sands oil to raise the level of carbon dioxide on Earth by 200 parts per million (ppm). Eighteen American scientific organizations support the consensus view that excess carbon dioxide, which is at its highest level in the last 800,000 years (392 ppm), is warming our planet. An increase in the Earth's temperature causes climate change, which has many negative effects.
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