Keystone Xl Pipeline - Cons - Communication and Critical Thinking

Communication and Critical Thinking

Carmin Weber

January 23, 2012

Diane Dauble

There was an article written by an environmental advocacy group about the Keystone Pipeline XL project that I disagree with. I can understand wanting people to agree with ones overall idea, but I don't agree with giving information in a misleading way to do it. This is a perfect example of considering a source of information to make sure you are getting the whole story. This website has an agenda, and that has to be kept in mind when reading from their website.

Under the section of the article labeled "What is the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline?" the third paragraph down it talks about locking the US into a dependence on this fuel. I find this to be completely misleading because TransCanada has other countries that would be happy to have their oil that would be pumped out of this pipeline. There is no reason that America has to use the oil. The article makes it sound like we are choosing this type of energy forever instead of more environmentally friendly methods. America will not be using more oil than what it already does; it's just going to change where we get it and the type of oil. One way that we get this type of energy is from coal for example. Yet, coal gives off more of some types of emissions into the atmosphere than tar sands. When a more viable environmentally friendly energy source comes along there is no reason that we can't start using that and stop using the oil. Like I said before; there are other countries that would be willing to take TransCanada's oil.

Another point made in this article, under the section labeled "How Could the Keystone XL Impact People and Wildlife?", is the areas that the pipeline will be running through. The article points out some very high profile and important landmarks. They say that the pipeline could destroy these important agricultural areas if an oil spill happens. The part that is misleading is that there are at least 7 different routes that TransCanada has mapped out for the US to choose from. In fact they have already ruled out the route that would include the aquifer, which is listed in the article as places that could get damaged. The aquifer is one of the largest natural drinking water sources in the Midwest.

Article

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Drilling-and-Mining/Tar-Sands/Keystone-XL-Pipeline.aspx