Environmental Obstructionists Are Harming the Environment
Environmentalists spend some of their time and energy on positive campaigns, trying to change things for the better (as they see it). Unfortunately, they also spend a lot of time being obstructionists and blocking progress. In many cases, the environmentalists' obstructionism actually ends up harming the environment. The two most obvious examples are the Keystone Pipeline and GMO foods.
Environmentalists have spent five years blocking the Keystone Pipeline. As planned, the pipeline would carry oil from Canadian tar sands south to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Environmentalists oppose the pipeline because oil from tar sands has a large carbon footprint. They believe that if the pipeline is built major damage will be done to the environment by increasing the use of this fossil fuel. Unfortunately, the environmentalists' stance only makes sense if seen in a vacuum.
The environmentalists thought that if they blocked the Keystone Pipeline they could stop those fossil fuels from ever being extracted and burned, keeping the associated carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. In reality the market adjusts and all the environmentalists achieve is a second-best outcome which costs more, damages the environment more, or both.
Without the Keystone Pipeline, the same crude oil will make it to market through both a different pipeline that heads to the Canadian west coast and then on by tanker to China and in train cars to U.S. refineries. Shipping the oil to China will increase the environmental damage. Moving it by train is more expensive, uses more energy than pipeline transportation, and introduces an additional risk to the environment: train accidents.
In the past two weeks, trains carrying Canadian crude oil have derailed and caught fire twice: one near Plaster Rock in New Brunswick, Canada, and the other near Casselton, North Dakota. Within the past year there have been five such accidents with the worst killing 47 people when the train exploded in the middle of the town of Lac Megantic in Quebec last summer.
Clearly, when a train full of crude oil burns it causes much more environmental damage than if that oil had been refined and used to fill a bunch of cars' gas tanks. The environmentalists see the environmental damage they have stopped but do not see the alternative environmental damage they have caused.
At least some environmentalists have also been waging a long war against GMO foods. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are plants or animals that have been genetically engineered to possess some beneficial trait. Many GMO crops are resistant to some herbicide, so farmers can kill weeds without harming their crops. Some have added nutritional properties. Anti-GMO activists claim to be worried about either harm to people from eating the foods or harm to the environment by the traits crossing over into other species in the wild. They have no scientific evidence, but that has not stopped them from inflicting real environmental damage in their quest to avoid imaginary damage.
The latest examples are corn and soybean seeds Dow AgroSciences developed that are resistant to a weed killer known as 2-4-D which has been a component in such common products as Scotts Turfbuilder for years. Canada has approved these crops and USDA has preliminarily recommended approval, but final U.S. approval is still held up thanks to the anti-GMO forces.
In the meantime, while the environmentalists block the GMO crops, farmers may have to plant more acres because of the lower yields they get with other seed varieties. More acres farmed leads to two downsides: land is converted from its natural state to farming and more chemicals will be used since more acres means more chemicals applied. More farmers will use tillage to minimize weeds, which leads to more soil erosion.
If farmers could use more GMO crops and animals, they could produce more food with fewer inputs of all sorts (land, chemicals, animal feed). That would mean less environmental damage. Normally, environmentalists work to preserve land in its natural state and to minimize use of the earth's natural resources. However, by opposing GMOs the environmentalists are causing more land to be used for agriculture and more resources to be used in agricultural production.
Environmental opposition to the Keystone Pipeline and GMO foods protects us from possible future bad outcomes. Unfortunately, the cost of that protection from things that might happen later is definite environmental damage right now. You never get something for nothing. In this case, we are getting hypothetical gains but paying for them with concrete losses. Environmentalists need to recognize the costs they are imposing on the environment they claim to love and weigh those costs before blindly opposing progress.
