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Green energy more important for climate than Keystone: White House

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A demonstrator holds a sign during a march against the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, February 17, 2013. REUTERS/Richard Clement

A demonstrator holds a sign during a march against the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, February 17, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Richard Clement

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE | Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:31pm EDT

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - A White House spokesman said on Friday that new investments in green energy technology are more important for easing the effects of climate change than whether or not the controversial Keystone pipeline gets built.

Asked by reporters whether the construction of the pipeline was less important to slowing climate change than supporting projects such as the Argonne National Laboratory that President Barack Obama is visiting on Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it was.

"There's no question about that," he said. Measures such as increasing automotive fuel economy standards would have the clearest impact, he said.

(Reporting By Roberta Rampton; Editing by Eric Beech)
Politics
Environment
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Comments (5)
From_California wrote:
Thanks, Obama. Objection to Keystone has become some the same kind of ideological impediment in the environmental community that taxes are to the Tea Party. We need to get past this kind of “line-in-the-sand” or “with us or against us” mentality. Bottom line is that preserving our family-like relationship with Canada is an overwhelming factor in the long-term national interest, and the environmental damage has been overstated on the sentiment — can’t call it a theory — that anything that continues petroleum use is evil. Yes,the tar sands of Canada do pose potentially more severe carbon consequences than other fuel sources, particularly natural gas. But we would never have sent a single American solider to Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan if our energy needs were met (as they can be) by North American oil and gas production (US, Canada and Mexico). Civilized people understand that wisdom involves compromises toward large overall ends. We can definitely find ways to balance out the environmental cost of the Keystone pipeline in other directions, such as Obama is pointing out.

Mar 15, 2013 1:48pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
gee.la wrote:
Dream your own dream, whitehouse. Green energy is dead. The economic impossibility, the slowing down of the energy costs, the total benefits of global climate change and the mentality of global humans (both female and male) all declare the death of green energy. White House likes to be with the dead against the livable. As matter of fact, green energy does more harm to the planet earth from the production to the consumption, from investment to development, from Washington to Beijing.

Mar 15, 2013 2:47pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
Speaker2 wrote:
gee.la

You must live in a different reality than the rest of us. And the right still wonders why we call the Republican and Tea party nuts, the “Know Nothing Party”.

Mar 15, 2013 3:35pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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