Tweet

This is a guest post by Glenn Hurowitz, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. It originally appeared on Grist.org, and is reprinted here with permission.

Everything you’ve heard about the tar sands and energy security is wrong
by Glenn Hurowitz

If there’s a single idea that the oil industry has peddled to persuade the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, it’s this: Tar-sands oil might be more polluting than even dirty old regular oil, but it’s better to get our energy from our ally Canada than from unstable oil suppliers in the Middle East or elsewhere.

In practice, the opposite is true: Drilling in North America is the single greatest threat to our nation’s energy security.

Tweet

We have received a lot of emails asking our thoughts on the so-called "Carbon Belch Day" being pushed by a right-wing grassroots organizer named Steve Elliot and his website Grassfire.

Normally we try not to stray too far into the left vs. right side of the global warming argument, however in this case it is hard to ignore. To say Elliot is "right-wing" is an understatement - according to his bio, Elliot "has rallied citizens on a host of grassroots issues, including border security, tax reform, abortion, traditional marriage, supporting our troops, exposing media bias and defending the Pledge of Allegiance."