If Keystone, then Why?

I've come out in favor of the Keystone Pipeline before, and I'll do so again now even though Thomas Friedman disagrees. I don't think the pipeline is a great thing - it certainly isn't either the job creation project or the energy independence tool that I have heard some make it out to be, but it also has its benefits - jobs and cheaper energy chief among them.

But this post isn't actually about the Keystone Pipeline itself so much as it is about all the things we should be pursuing in addition to the pipeline. I'll say quickly that I support the pipeline because I think it will help us wean ourselves off of our addiction to foreign oil - yes, Canada is technically still foreign, but I would prefer to pay the Canadians for their black goo rather than funneling more money towards people who will use some of that money to hurt America. I think the Keystone Pipeline can be an important step towards helping us transition off of fossil fuels and towards a diverse alternative energy grid.

So I found Friedman's piece thought-provoking not because he rejects Keystone, but because, like me, he is thinking about what else we can and should be doing. If we accept Keystone, we accept it as part of a broader package that helps us pursue clean energy independence, not solely on the basis of its own economic merits.

So what comes next? Friedman lays out some ideas, I have touched on others, and there are plenty that neither of us have mentioned - and some of which I have no familiarity with - that deserve merit. But the concept I like most - and one I read about recently in Jared Diamond's book Collapse - is the idea of natural infrastructure, investing in the ecosystems with which we were endowed and which can be sources of clean and sustainable energy and economic development if maintained and allowed to flourish. In Collapse, Diamond talks about how the US has failed to manage some of our natural parks and forests to help prevent forest fires, and how those nations that do manage their natural resources well gain a competitive advantage over those that do not. He uses the example of the Dominican Republic and its much poorer island cohabitant Haiti to illustrate this dichotomy. Though the DR does not strike us as an economic powerhouse, it is remarkably much better off than Haiti primarily as a result of good ecosystem stewardship.

When we talk about our nation being blessed with natural resources, we're usually talking about the shale gas reserves or offshore oil that is helping us towards energy independence. What we should also be talking about are all the other natural resources we don't normally include in those conversations, and how to successfully maintain them in a mutually beneficial, symbiotic way. Our natural infrastructure will be incredibly important to our country's future, and while I hope President Obama moves forward with the Keystone Pipeline I want that to be merely the first step in helping us move towards clean energy independence ultimately makes that very pipeline unnecessary.