Former U.S. vice president Al Gore has a strong message for President Barack Obama – don’t agree to the Keystone XL pipeline that will transport tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in the Gulf.
Calling the pipeline an attrocity, Gore told the Guardian newspaper recently: “I certainly hope that he will veto that now that the Canadians have publicly concluded that it is not safe to take a pipeline across British Columbia to ports on the Pacific. I really can’t imagine that our country would say: ‘Oh well. Take it right over parts of the Ogallala aquifer’, our largest and most important source of ground water in the U.S. It’s really a losing proposition.”
Gore says Obama should stick to the promises he made at his inauguration for his second term in office, a pledge to deal seriously with climate change.
Gore said an even larger environmental decision loomed for Obama next month. The White House has indicated Obama could offer a long-awaited climate plan, the first concrete proposals since his inauguration in January. Gorre said Obama must get serious about cutting carbon emissions.
Gore was speaking from Istanbul, Turkey, where he will soon lead a three-day training session on climate change for a global group of 600 activists.
