Two Pieces of Really Good News

Two pieces of really good new recently.

Most recent, the Obama administration's rejection of the Keytstone XL pipeline. As many people have noted, dumping the Keystone project will reduce carbon emissions very little. They therefore conclude that the rejection is mostly of symbolic value, but that's very misleading. If I realize that I have to lose weight, and then face the choice of whether or not to buy a candy bar, I could tell myself that rejecting this one candy bar will have almost no effect on the overall amount of calories that I need to lose. But the point is that when you commit to losing weight, you have to start somewhere, and so long as you continue buying candy bars then you haven't actually started. So long as we continue building carbon infrastructure then we haven't started our carbon diet. It's as simple as that and that is why the Keystone XL rejection is more than simply a "symbolic" victory.

Here's a link to the Washington Post story on the rejction. They have a nice video history of the pipeline at the bottom of the story.

The other piece of good news is the New York Sate investigation into Exxon Mobil's disinformation campaign about climate change. That is good and even exciting news. We are engaged in a war here, and you win a war by defeating your enemies. The carbon industries and their political lackies are the enemy, and a criminal investigation of their activities holds at least the potential of a way to hurt them badly as well as reveal their lies to the American people and neutralize their ability to lie effectively going forward. This is great.

Here's a link to Teagan Goddard's Wonk Wire report on the investigation.