Dear President Obama: Tar Sands & Keystone XL are more Dangerous than an Iranian Atomic Bomb

http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/president-keystone-dangerous.html

Dear President Obama: Tar Sands & Keystone XL are more Dangerous than an Iranian Atomic Bomb
By Juan Cole | Feb. 4, 2014

Dear President Obama:

You have said repeatedly that if negotiations with Iran do not limit its nuclear enrichment activities solely to peaceful uses, i.e. production of fuel for energy plants, that you would be willing to go to war with that country to ensure that it does not develop an atomic bomb. Some prominent American politicians, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, do not want to wait for negotiations and would like to launch that war today.

But atomic weapons are possessed by Israel, Britain, France, China, Russia, Pakistan, India and the United States, and only two have ever been detonated in anger. Atomic bombs are defensive weapons, not offensive ones, because deploying them aggressively would usually exact too heavy a toll for the aggressor to bear in consequence.

You said at Prague in 2009, “today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But while you seem to put a great deal of emphasis on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and the danger it might be weaponized, and while you say you want nuclear disarmament in general, you seem to take a longer view on a much, much more extreme threat to the earth than a few thousand atomic bombs. While you have been the best president on the issue of climate change, and EPA regulations on coal plants in your administration are going a long way toward closing them down, you keep talking about an “all of the above” energy policy that lauds hydraulic fracking and increased hydrocarbon production. If you produce more of the stuff, it will be burned into the atmosphere. And, even just extracting it out is very bad for the earth.