Keystone has climate impact

In response to Charles Krauthammer’s Jan. 25 chiding of President Obama for not promptly approving the Keystone XL pipeline (“Canada deserves Keystone answer”), I have to ask, what’s the hurry?

Krauthammer speculates “The only rationale for denying the pipeline is political – to appease Obama’s more extreme environmentalists.”

I guess he might be referring to people like me who actually believe the reputable science that strongly suggests that fossil fuel emissions are the prime contributor to global warming, and that we must drastically cut back our present emissions levels if we want to avoid disaster.

Pre-eminent climatologists calculate that as much as 80 percent of known fossil fuel deposits will have to remain in the ground, unused, to meet this goal, yet Krauthammer insists, “The Keystone case is almost absurdly open and shut … Canada will not leave it in the ground.”

Really? No matter the facts and consequences? It’s disheartening to note that over the last decade as the scientists refine their observations and theories, their predictions have gotten more dire and pessimistic. That trend can only get worse if people are as locked into the rigid, reality-denying mode of thinking such as is expressed by Krauthammer.

Richard Wesson

Pullman