Obama, Keystone XL, Canadian Green Perspectives and the Rest of Us

[dewline]

A friendly acquaintance of mine (and several others on my friendlist here at LJ) recently posted some interesting observations about the possible consequences of Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline project.

I suspect that Alex is right on several points here, but I'd be interested in your perspective on his POV. Anyone?

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Have you read John Ralston Saul's A Fair Country? I suspect that in that book he nails down the main cultural/psychological reason why our government and corporate leadership at present refuses to consider pursuing the possibility: the belief within their ranks that we are not and should not aspire to be a "real country".

Too complex?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I'm sceptical that the psychological explanation is necesssary to explain the phenomenon in most cases, probably this one included. I think that quarterly profit projections are enough to explain the preference for shipping raw materials out of the country over doing the processing here.

Re: Too complex?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

It's possible that you're right, and that I'm over-analyzing the situation here. The numbers you refer to may feed a bias already operating at a near-instinctive level, though.

Wishing I had more information to work from here, but I'm too far from the core of the "onion".

Re: Too complex?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think I stated my case too strongly. I do think Saul is right about the psychology. I just don't think it's the dominant factor in the case of the tar sands from the corportate point of view, but it's hard to explain the lack of political will to push for value-added without it.

Ah.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're right on this point.