On January 18, after a months-long political battle, President Obama rejected a Canadian firm’s application to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would have carried tarsands oil from Canada to Texas. Since the summer, Bill McKibben had organized a tremendous environmental battle against the pipeline.
Why this fight? McKibben quoted James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, as saying that this pipeline would essentially mean “game over for the climate,” because the oil coming from the tarsands are so ...
