Tar Sands Oil has already been Everywhere (Map)

Mother Johnson/Screen capture

Environmentalists and climate activists might have won a large temporary victory when their efforts convinced Obama to obstruct the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline until an in-depth environment review might be carried out. These days, the GOP, their oil industry sponsors, along with a small number of oily Dems will work to ram via a provision that will overturn Obama's decision, and allow the pipeline move forward.

But as progressives, vegetables, and climate hawks still fight the efforts of Large Oil to circumvent democracy, they ought to bear in mind one factor: Tar sands oil has already been everywhere. The tar sands market is worth an believed $13 billion approximately, and it is already being refined at near to 50 refineries over the U.S.

Here's Mother Johnson:

Using data in the federal Energy Information Administration (which tracks imports of natural oil), Forest Ethics put together a listing of nearly 50 US refineries that handle tar sands oil...During these refineries, the heavy, molasses-like "bitumen" in the tar sands undergoes heating, mixing, along with other refining steps and arrives as able to be used fuel, prepared to be pumped right into a lengthy-haul semi. Exactly what the map shows, Forest Ethics campaign director Aaron Sanger stated, is the fact that "unless of course you do something to consider tar sands oil from your footprint, you've first got it inside your footprint."

Mother Johnson then switched Forest Ethics' data into an interactive map this is a screenshot above. Mind to MoJo for any much deeper analysis into how deeply tar sands oil already pervades the American Economy, and also to click around on their own oily map.

As you can tell in the map above, we are going to need to perform a much more than cancel the Keystone XL pipeline to conquer the tar sands--and that we should.

Amazon . com Affiliate

sections photo voltaic solar power