Note: My coauthor for this post is Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org.
In 2008, President-Elect Barack Obama made it clear that he understood the immediacy of the threat of climate disruption. "Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all," he said. "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."
True to his word, President Obama did take action during his first term by directing EPA to regulate greenhouse gas pollution for the first time, by doubling the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks, and by supporting clean-energy industries with stimulus funding. In spite of the failure to get a climate and energy bill through Congress, this was a good start at building a lasting legacy of action on climate disruption -- something no other president can claim.
Now, as he prepares to start his second term, President Obama knows that how he addresses the threat of climate disruption will be one of the principal measures of his presidency. On December 12, he told TIME magazine: "[O]n an issue like climate change, for example, I think for this country and the world to ask some very tough questions about what are we leaving behind, that weighs on you." Climate, he said, would be one of the top three priorities of his second term.
Unfortunately, the biggest threat to Obama's climate legacy is his own "all-of-the-above" energy policy, which has left the door open for extreme oil sources that threaten both our immediate environment and our long-term climate future. Among the most infamous of these are the Canadian tar sands. Should Obama enable the development of Canada's tar sands by approving the Keystone XL pipeline, the consequences would negate all the progress made during his first term and then some. In an instant, his climate-action legacy would swing from success to failure.
Last year, the president put the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline proposal on hold and directed the State Department to redo its weak scientific review of the project. Everyone's known from the start that the State Department was overly cozy with TransCanada, which wants to build the pipeline, and that the president would have to make the final call.
The State Department has now released that revised environmental review. Incredibly, it does not to take into consideration how developing the Canadian tar sands would affect climate disruption.
In fact, the effects would be devastating for two reasons. First, it's estimated that production of synthetic crude oil from tar sands releases at least three times the greenhouse gas emissions per barrel as does production of conventional crude oil. That means that if we were to replace just three million barrels per day of conventional oil with tar sands oil, the resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to adding more than 20 million new passenger cars to the road or to building four new coal-fired power plants.
Second, unlocking the carbon from the tar sand fields and releasing it into our atmosphere would make it impossible to avert a global climate disaster. As James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said, "The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren."
The catastrophic effect that tar sands development would have on Earth's climate for generations to come is just one of many good reasons why President Obama should reject the Keystone XL pipeline -- but it's the only reason he needs in order to make the right decision.
Although President Obama is the decision maker on this issue, it's not just his own legacy that's at stake. It is the legacy that all of us in early 21st century America will leave for the world -- every citizen, every elected official, every business, and every industry. We stand at a crossroads. We can either lead the world in clean, renewable energy solutions or retreat from the promise of a safe and stable climate.
We're betting that Americans aren't ready to give up on the future, and neither should President Obama. We need to make 2013 a year when we commit to climate solutions not climate disasters. That's why on Sunday, February 17 (Presidents Day weekend), thousands of us will head to the White House and tell President Obama to shut down the climate-killing Keystone XL pipeline once and for all. The Sierra Club, 350.org, and other environmental groups are working with our partners across the progressive community to make this the biggest, most astonishing climate demonstration yet. The stakes demand nothing less.