Bill McKibben thinks humans and the planet are more important than the US Chamber of Commerce. I shouldn't give an extremist like this -- human life more important than the US Chamber? -- any column space, but here he is, in an interview with Bruce Gellerman of "Living On Earth," blatantly supporting life.
GELLERMAN: Well, the Chamber of Commerce says ‘Well, we’re talking jobs here. We’re talking fuel from a friendly source.’
MCKIBBEN: The only independent study of jobs from this pipeline, done by Cornell, showed that it would kill as many jobs as it would create. That fuel from a friendly source is destined for export to Latin America and Europe and not for use in the U.S. The arguments in favor of this are simply bogus; they’re just a cover for the fact that people want to make some money pumping more oil.
And, of course, they all ignore the biggest argument of all. As Jim Hanson of NASA said, if you tap those tar sands heavily, it’s essentially game over for the climate. And that doesn’t matter to the Chamber of Commerce. They filed a legal brief with the EPA two years ago saying that climate wouldn’t warm, but if it did, humans could, and I quote: ‘humans could alter their physiology’ in order to continue to inhabit this Earth. So for them, no big deal. We’d actually rather have a few of those giant energy companies alter their business plans and let the rest of us keep our anatomy more or less intact! ...Living on Earth
