State Department Finds Something Worse Than Keystone

There is a famous tale in the Bible of King Solomon’s wisdom. When confronted with two women claiming to be the mother of a certain baby, the wise king proposed cutting the baby in half, and giving half to each. When one woman refused, he gave her the baby, since it was clear to him that she must be the real mother.

A State Department report, published last week, after poring over the mountains of data pertaining to the Keystone XL pipeline, in hopes of finding a clear signal to resolve this difficult decision, announced a finding that more people would likely die from spills if the tar sands oil is transported by train, than if the pipeline is completed. That’s because oil train spills occur even more frequently than pipeline spills. So, one might surmise, if King Solomon were alive today, he would say that if we care at all about all those people living besides railroad lines, whose lives are about to become a game of Russian roulette, we would go ahead and approve the pipeline.

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Image Credit: Ray Bodden: Flickr Creative Commons

RP Siegel, author and inventor, shines a powerful light on numerous environmental and technological topics. He has been published in business and technical journals and has written three books. His third, co-authored with Roger Saillant, is Vapor Trails, an eco-thriller that is being adapted for the big screen. RP is a professional engineer – and a prolific inventor, with 50 patents, numerous awards, and several commercial products. He is president of Rain Mountain LLC and is an active environmental advocate in his hometown of Rochester, N.Y. In addition to Justmeans, he writes for Triple Pundit, ThomasNet News, and Energy Viewpoints, occasionally contributing to Mechanical Engineering, Strategy + Business, and Huffington Post. You can follow RP on Twitter, @RPSiegel.