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On January 23, Bloomberg News reported Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), owned by his lucrative holding company Berkshire Hathaway, stands to benefit greatly from President Barack Obama’s recent cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

If built, TransCanada's Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline would carry tar sands crude, or bitumen (“dilbit”) from Alberta, B.C. down to Port Arthur, Texas, where it would be sold on the global export market. 

If not built, as revealed recently by DeSmogBlog, the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side, and could include increased levels of ecologically hazardous gas flaring in the Bakken Shale, or else many other pipeline routes moving the prized dilbit to crucial global markets.

Rail is among the most important infrastructure options for ensuring tar sands crude still moves to key global markets, and the industry is pursuing rail actively. But transporting tar sands crude via rail is in many ways a dirtier alternative to the KXL pipeline. “Railroads too present environmental issues. Moving crude on trains produces more global warming gases than a pipeline,” explained Bloomberg.

A key mover and shaker behind the push for more rail shipments is Warren Buffett, known by some as the “Oracle of Omaha” — of "Buffett Tax" fame — and the third richest man in the world, with a net worth of $39 billion. With or without Keystone XL, Warren Buffett stands to profit enormously from multiple aspects of the Alberta Tar Sands project. He also, importantly, maintains close ties with President Barack Obama.

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The former U.S. vice president will descend on Victoria September 29, then cross the Georgia Strait for an engagement that evening in Vancouver. After his address, expected to focus on daily actions to combat climate change, the audience will be treated to high tea at the venerable Empress Hotel.

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A column in a Seattle newspaper says growing consensus on human causes of climate change has forced deniers to switch tactics, abandoning shrill demands for scientific evidence – which is ample – for “drive-by shootings” such as exaggerated estimates of energy consumption in Al Gore’s house in Tennessee, or Prince Charles flying across the Atlantic to receive an environmental award.

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With those words, the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia took what might be the most aggressive leadership position in the world on the issue of global warming.

The quote - that headline - is taken from the provincial Speech from the Throne, a broad statement of intent that parliamentary governments use to begin new sessions of the legislature. As such, it is a policy statement, rather than a legislated commitment. But the vision - the sheer audacity - of that stated policy puts British Columbia at the forefront of the global battle against climate change.