Call for Comments to State Dept. on Keystone XL Pipeline by April 22, 2013

Dear Friends,
The destruction of the forests, land and communities in Alberta Province, Canada to mine tar sands oil is a great human and environmental tragedy. Stewardship of God's earth it is not. We must speak out now to call upon President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline that, if built, would increase this destruction and make our climate crisis worse.
*You can send an email to the State Department by clicking on this link at 350.org. Please do so today; there are only a few days remaining until the April 22 deadlline for comments.
Tar sands oil is the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive oil on the planet. A study that came out just this week estimated that when you include the entire life-cycle of tar sands oil, it is equivalent to adding 37 million cars to the road as far as greenhouse gas emissions!
Proponents of this pipeline have described it as a major source of jobs. It will produce several thousand temporary construction jobs, but the State Department's Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement itself said that there would be only a grand total of 35 permanent jobs created. Without a doubt, investing our resources into clean, renewable energy is far and away a much better job creator.

*Please send an email today to the State Department by clicking on this link.

For the last two weeks the small Arkansas community of Mayflower has been struggling with the impacts of a broken pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada. This is what pipelines do: they leak. The U.S. section of the first Keystone I pipeline has leaked at least 14 times since it was built in 2010. And a tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo, Mi. two and a half years ago is still being cleaned up, with $800 million already having been spent to do so.
Ironically, analyses have shown that the building of the Keystone XL pipeline will increase gasoline prices in the US, particularly in the midwest, since this is an export pipeline that will end up shrinking the gas supply in that region.
 
*For all of these and other reasons, please take a minute right now to click on this link and register your views on this important, urgent issue.

God's creation is to be appreciated and preserved. The development of tar sands oil does just the opposite. We must speak up for a world powered by clean, renewable energy and blessed by a stable, benign climate that supports all life.
Sincerely,
the IMAC Steering Committee