PIPELINE OIL TRANSPORT VERSUS RAILWAY TRANSPORT

Saskatchewan has recently suffered through two derailings of oil tank cars and who can forget Lac Megantic back in 2013. It seems clear that pipelines are "safer" than rail transport. But...pipelines can and do leak. Generally they don't explode and then produce massive air pollution however. I'm trying to recall if the massive spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan five to ten years ago was from a leaking pipeline or not.

The problem is this ...climate change. Either declaring climate change an impending world disaster was the right move or not. If the consensus is that indeed climate change is upon us, it is man made, and we needed to be acting decades ago, then our future action should be obvious. Yes there will be major pain in weaning the world off of oil. Financial pain, economic pain, physical pain, cold in winter and heat in summer all will be increased in the short run. The problem is that we've already delayed for too many decades and now the piper has to be paid. The alternative is essentially human annihilation.

So do we bite the bullet and not only stop oil pipeline construction now but actually reduce our insatiable consumption of gas and oil? If not then our children and grandchildren may be going a lot hungrier and colder than we will by merely reducing our consumption of oil products now. Rail sucks but the damage and pain only increases every day for future generations that we continue on our current path of oil production, export, and consumption.