Another day, another oil spill (“ Leaking Enbridge pipeline spills nearly 70k gallons of oil in Wisconsin ,” Dec. 15). Why didn't the public learn about this one until a month after it was discovered? It wasn't a catastrophic spill, but it was an accident waiting to happen.
Pipelines inevitably break, leak, and spill, and Enbridge, the operator, has an especially unenviable record of safety, compliance, and reliability. Ironically, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced its approval of the rerouting of Enbridge's controversial Line 5 three days after the Line 6 spill was discovered.
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The worst part isn't the environmental or economic harm caused by pipeline spills. It's that we have to stop burning the petroleum they carry if we want to delay climate catastrophe and have a fighting chance at stabilizing a climate that can sustain civilization. The more we shore up old and build new pipelines to transport more petroleum to more places, the slimmer that chance becomes.
A livable future requires that we rapidly and aggressively shift to solar, wind, geothermal, and other types of sustainable energy. We have or are developing the technology. "But the economy!" you say. Such a shift would benefit, not hurt, the economy. What is overwhelming the economy is the cost of recovering from and preparing for increasingly frequent and damaging climate-related disasters, a cost borne by every level of government, every sector of the economy, and, ultimately, every person.
Carol Steinhart
Madison, Wisconsin
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