“The Future of Fossil Fuels Hinges on Two Huge Midwestern Pipeline Fights” by PETER MONTAGUE, Common Dreams, December 9, 2021, caught my attention. It is essential to stop construction of so-called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) infrastructure that article is about.
But I think the extraction and use of fossil fuels will end prior to the construction of CCS because increasingly frequent and devastating environmental catastrophe will wipe out existing fossil fuel and other infrastructure. Just this year the “atmospheric river” in the northwest caused oil pipelines to be exposed and move up and down as water flowed around them.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, one of the world’s largest oil pipelines, could be in danger.
Thawing permafrost threatens to undermine the supports holding up an elevated section of the pipeline, jeopardizing its structural integrity and raising the potential of an oil spill in a delicate and remote landscape.
The slope of permafrost where an 810-foot section of the pipeline is secured has started to shift as it thaws, causing several of the braces holding up the pipeline to twist and bend.
This appears to be the first instance that pipeline supports have been damaged by “slope creep” caused by thawing permafrost, records and interviews with officials involved with managing the pipeline show.
Trouble in Alaska? Massive oil pipeline is threatened by thawing permafrost. The slope of permafrost where an 810-foot section of the pipeline is secured has started to shift as it thaws, causing braces holding up the pipeline to twist and bend. David Hasemery, Inside Climate News, July 11, 2021
The recent, horrendous tornadoes flattened everything in their path. Including water towers so there is no water. Including gas stations. Including power transmission infrastructure. Hospitals, pharmacies, news outlets, churches, schools, prisons, fire and police stations and equipment. Grocery and other stores, banks, car lots, manufacturing facilities. Local, state, and Federal offices, nonprofits, and systems they support such as Social Security and other social safety nets. Homes.
And renewables, including solar panels and wind turbines.
The center of fossil fuel refineries is New Orleans, below sea level, which will flood, wiping out that infrastructure. Transatlantic shipment of fossil fuels will likely end.
Sea level rise will have similar effects on millions who live on the coasts.
The question is what will we do now?
I’ve been working on this diagram that summarizes what I think needs to be done. We haven’t had the will to voluntarily move toward LandBack, abolition, participatory economy, conservation, and Mutual Aid. In the face of all that is collapsing, these are the solutions we need to build on now. This is what I’ve been writing about on LANDBACK Friends. https://landbackfriends.com/
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