Summer tourists looking to snap a picture at the White House gate be forewarned: You're going to need to work around an August protest group - environmental activists picketing the president to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would pump crude from the Canadian oil sands in and around Hardisty, Alberta southward 2100 miles to Nederland, Texas.
For days now, protesters proceed to waiting paddy-wagons with a cheery send-off from their fellow activists: "2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate? [Ms. or Mr. Protester]!" Click go the iPhones, and the special moment is instantly uploaded to YouTube.
Geopolitically, the White House protesters have chosen a "soft target": A pipeline transiting two of the world's most rights-friendly governments, with well-established environmental laws, worker safety regulations and court systems that grant standing to almost any individual or group that has concerns about a project.
But then again, shouldn't concerned citizens take direct action to stop a practice that is - as one NGO puts it - a "human rights, environmental and economic monstrosity," inflicting a "cocktail of toxins" on an unsuspecting public exposed to "premature death, childhood respiratory illness and cancer?"
No, wait - those statements don't refer to the hypothetical environmental impact of the proposed Keystone pipeline; they describe the actual atmospheric assault venting every minute of every day from Nigeria's oil fields, where unchecked natural gas flaring lights the night sky, burning so bright it can be seen from outer space.
According to Friends of the Earth, the environmentalist NGO that also opposes the Canadian-American Keystone pipeline, "Nigeria has produced more greenhouse gas emissions than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa combined." Flaring worldwide is the annual equivalent of 77 million extra cars on the road, with Nigeria alone flaring 70 million metric tons of CO-2 into the atmosphere each year. Compare that to the projected CO-2 output from Canada's oil sands of 12 to 23 million metric tons, which a Council on Foreign Relations study puts at less than 0.1 percent of global emissions.
More than dirty air is at stake: Anti-Keystone activists warn that Dirty Oil spawns Dirty Government. And yet while protesters fret over Canadian corruption, consider this not-so-diplomatic snippet on Nigeria from the Annual Human Rights Report issued by the U.S. State Department:
"Human rights problems [in Nigeria]... included the abridgement of citizens' right to change their government; politically motivated and extrajudicial killings by security forces, including summary executions; torture, rape, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees, and criminal suspects; harsh and life-threatening prison and detention center conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary and judicial corruption; infringement on citizens' privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and movement; official corruption and impunity; violence and discrimination against women; the killing of children suspected of witchcraft; female genital mutilation (FGM); child abuse and child sexual exploitation; societal violence; ethnic, regional, and religious discrimination and violence; vigilante killings; trafficking in persons for the purpose of prostitution and forced labor; discrimination against persons with disabilities; discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; child labor; forced and bonded labor; and abductions by militant groups."
Who's supporting Nigeria's rapacious ruling regime? We are to to the tune of 981,000 barrels per day, making Nigeria the U.S.'s fifth largest oil supplier. At today's spot price, that's more than $30 billion dollars a year, piped directly from the U.S. economy into accounts controlled by Nigeria's ruling class. The same sort of crude calculus pertains for Hugo Chavez's Venezuela (918,000 barrels per day), Vladimir Putin's Russia (250,000 bpd) and the Saudi kingdom (more than 1 million barrels per day). The last thing any of them want to see is a new pipeline carrying 900,000 barrels per day from Canada into the United States.
Of course, the average anti-Keystone activist has no idea that she or he is actually stumping for the status-quo, and a dirty one at that.
