Whatever the conventionally-measured benefits of building more pipelines to distribute a dwindling and more remote amount of oil or bitumen, the costs of continued global warning are colossal.
Profiting from perhaps a few more decades of depletion of oil and tar-sands may not be very advantageous if the biosphere is wrecked when the anticipated profits are fully counted.
Putting more gas in your car when the biosphere is spiraling downward, is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Depletion of a finite resource is not really production.
A proper cost-benefit analysis of expansion of oil pipelines should include the opportunity cost of not acting now to end the unsustainable addiction to oil.
Redesigning transportation systems and cities and investing accordingly, to reduce oil consumption and its carbon emissions, is a significant part of this necessary calculation.
C. Addington
London, On.
