The Thin Green Line
Sightline Institute is a great source of research about green issues for the Northwest. They have described the Fossil Fuel Export issue as a regional issue, where the decisions of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia (maybe to be thought of as “Cascadia”) hold the key to whether fossil fuel will be successfully exported from
coal mines in Montana and Wyoming
fracked oil from North Dakota and Montana
tar-sands oil from Alberta
fracked natural gas from many states
All of these industries are depending on shipping through west coast terminals in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
All of these exports would be locally destructive as well as globally destructive in a long list of ways.
So far, we have been successful in stopping exports of coal from Oregon and Washington. British Columbia is trying to slow coal exports and maybe stop them.
British Columbia has no favored routes for rail or pipelines for supporting exports.
All rail exports want to come through the Columbia Gorge, with some empty trains returning through mountain routes.
There are plans for major changes to gas pipelines to allow export of liquified natural gas (LNG) and liquified propane (LPG).
With efforts slowing and sometimes stopping these exports, Sightline describes these efforts as defending “The Thin Green Line” at the Cascade Mountains.
The link to a Vimeo video, above, has a comment from Bill Moyers that says:
| Starting at about minute 19, Eric speaks about the need for higher value freight to be moved by trains as an alternative to their current dependence on heavy, dangerous, climate disrupting fossil fuels. http://SolutionaryRail.org is the Backbone Campaign's proposal for Warren Buffett and regional leaders in order to transform the economics of rail and shift the infrastructure toward sustainability. As an introduction, we recommend that you check out the recent KEXP interview Patrick Mazza and I (Bill Moyer) did with Diane Horn: http://solutionaryrail.org/kexp/ |
See also: The Thin Green Line