Listening to General Anderson: Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would set back clean energy by 20 years

Brigadier General (Retired) Steven Anderson is a crusader against dependence on oil and in our fight against climate change. He has been speaking out against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would bring tar sands oil across America’s heartland to the Gulf Coast for an oil industry plan to get higher prices on the export market.

As the General has said: “My experiences in Iraq convinced me that the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and that Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late.”

The oil industry argues that Keystone XL is in America’s national interest. But who do you trust to know our security interests better – multinational oil companies or a General who fought on the ground in Iraq?

Watch this short video where the General says:

The stakes are American security, American lives, American blood and billions of dollars. We are actually supporting Big Oil through this pipeline and we’re ignoring the implications that it will have on our national security. It makes us more vulnerable in the future. It will continue to keep us addicted to oil.

This addiction leads to global instability and climate change.

Bottom line is that we need to make tough choices now about changing the way we handle energy, manage energy and get our energy in this nation. We need to develop renewable energy now. The Keystone XL pipeline would set back a timeline for clean energy by twenty years.

Read NRDC and Oil Change International’s new report on energy security and Keystone XL here.