Railing against Rail
Oil and gas are transported by rail, trucks, ships, and pipelines. The safest among the four are pipelines, yet, that is what the alarmists continue to vilify the most. The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio will have deadly consequences in the vicinity for years to come. Four cars were carrying vinyl chloride, while 16 others had a variety of other hazardous chemicals on board. Depending on how quickly the materials can be stopped from entering streams, rivers, and groundwater, the noxious effects may be felt quite some distance from the East Palestine site. Dead fish and fowl have already littered the area. The National Transportation Safety Board claims that a faulty wheel bearing from a single railcar caused the derailment.
If a single wheel bearing can cause the devastation witnessed in East Palestine, just how safe is shipping a large amalgamation or collection of hazardous materials in the same line of railcars.? Then, just how ridiculous was the decision to burn all of the rail car contents sending mushroom clouds of noxious gases into several locations including neighboring states and beyond?
The East Palestine story was initially hidden from the national audience by the legacy media but dissemination by local news sources went viral. Considering the number of derailments annually, it would appear conveyance by rail is the most dangerous of all methods of transport or hazardous materials including liquid fossil fuels. Both the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) as well as the carrier Norfolk Southern Railway have been significantly stoic and aloof on the matter. The city of East Palestine and its residents have been left in confusion, frustration, fear, and anger.
Assuredly, the decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline plays a significant and embarrassing role in the partisan silence of government officials. They know that the annulment of that pipeline could lead to heightened endangerment, yet the continued dissolution of fossil fuels knows no bounds, including the placement of people into perilous predicaments. It would further seem investment, investors, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance ratings) are also involved in this debacle as well as a reason for the apprehensiveness of major television networks in covering the story.
As an example of the foolhardy protests, in the linked video Hanoi Jane Fonda arrives in Minnesota to tackle the Enbridge Oil Pipeline. While I doubt she flew to that state on an electric plane and was driving, or should I say was driven in an electric car, she constantly lends her celebrity, but certainly not any cerebral, to these dim-witted demonstrations. A portion of the pipeline runs through the Straits of Mackinac approximately 3.5 to 3.75 miles in length. This strait divides Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The pipeline has been in service since 1953 with no leaks or issues of any type. The company has even agreed to an upgrade. The pipeline brings 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude, and natural gas liquids, much of the refined materials going to the United States and the result is the employment of 33,700 people.
If you do not have Facebook, the video in the paragraph above may be seen in the linked article from the Minnesota Reformer.
In a similar matter in Canada, Tribal Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation was on hand with Neil Young at a concert at the Massey Hall in Toronto to lend aboriginal credence to his disapproval of the construction of oil pipelines in that nation. As it turns out Chief Allan Adam was paid by a leftist American foundation, quite handsomely, at $55,000 for his opposition and objection even though he rarely said a word. There was, however, a robust attempt made to hide the payment. Young is simply another overly-wealthy, leftist personality that believes he needs to expand his one-known horizon with some pseudo-compassionate caring and misdirected sensitivity. In my humble music opinion, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, were much better when it was simply Crosby, Stills & Nash.
In any event, it remains quite a mystery why pipelines are protested and the governments of the United States and Canada align with the protestors when, in fact, this safest mode of transport is impeded and the obvious alternative, rail, is so much more dangerous. It seems almost everything about the leftist theory of anthropogenic climate change is simply an extensive and colossal enigma.
