Tar Sands Case Study

This is the map of all of the pipelines throughout the United States as of 2006. It makes me wonder, how much more damage will the Keystone XL pipeline actually do? It seems as though there are already pipelines going through environmentally sensitive areas. In fact, it almost looks like there are pipelines along the same route as that proposed for the extension.  Surprising, isn’t it?

This raises the question of WHY people protest the pipeline. Here are some possible reasons: we must disregard when these pipelines were built, and focus on the time we are in- do we want to support the mining of tar sands? Do we want to put the environment and people at greater risk [than they already are]? Are we against the pipeline in principle or for other reasons?