Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline two months ago in a strictly political move pretending that such a project would undercut America’s ‘leadership on climate change’. His politically driven agenda ignored the upside that newly employed thousands would bring to a starving economy – in North America. So why is Obama promoting, even arranging financing, for a Kenyan pipeline that will run through the crucially sensitive habitat for endangered species, the Great Rift Valley?
Even the Obama cheerleader, WaPo, had conceded that the State Department’s massive environmental review of the Keystone pipeline indicated that it would not have significant impact on greenhouse-gas emissions. Reduction of dependance on Middle East oil imports was evidently not a relevant consideration of the Obama Administration, nor were increases in employment — Obama professed that the pipeline would not create jobs.
Pontificating against the Keystone pipeline, Obama moralized in his rejection of Keystone, “we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky” and “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
So why would he want a new 600 mile pipeline in Kenya, which would have zero positive impact on America? Does he actually believe America’s economy is so good it needs no help, but Kenya’s economy needs help — damn the environment? From the podium and with platitudinous pretence he proclaims himself the climate change leader, however, his actions prove otherwise.
Kenya is out of sight, out of mind, for most Americans, so Obama is helping it raise the $18 billion (including American tax dollars) required to pull oil out of the ground and build the Kenyan pipeline. Oh, and building the pipeline will apparently create jobs for Kenyans. Imagine that. Benefits to America? NONE.
Keystone pipeline financing? Keystone was already financed by private interests, would not have required American taxpayer cash, and it would have contributed at least $3.4 billion to the economy. Thousands of miles of pipelines have been built in the U.S. in recent years and the Keystone pipeline would have required no effort from Obama, but it was visible because it was from Canada.
Kenya’s newly flowing oil (heavy, waxy oil) will head to China and India — you know, those two nations which so mindfully treat their air and so forcefully restrict emissions. Yah, those two.
Pipelines are a reality of our dependence on oil, which seems to be part of our future for some time to come, as alternatives very slowly make their way toward practicality and viability. A pipeline from Canada, or pipeline through Kenya? Concerned for burnishing his international image, the future Globalist In Chief paves his own road to supremacy by vigorously denying one, and financing the other.
Obama’s extremist supporters and compliant MSM applaud whatever their leaders says, without much analysis of what he does. The false posturing and extreme hypocrisy of this Administration constantly provides us ample evidence that it has no moral compass and the media refuses to offer any challenge.
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.