[BizarroLand]

Yeah, but general damage to the environment is better than destroying a specific group of people's homeland. Oil pipelines leak frequently. An oil leak in some tribal lands could poison the water and make the tribal lands unlivable for years.

Why is that less of a concern than the environment as a whole?

It's no more right to justify that than it would be to justify putting all of the country's debt on a single person or taking all of the pollution in the atmosphere but smothering individual children with it so that everyone else can breathe freely.

[Manuel_D]

Oil pipelines on average leak less than truck and rail transport for the same volume of oil [1].

1. https://pstrust.org/rail-vs-pipelines

[ipaddr]

It adds a new risk that a pipeline could become damaged which could leak into the environment which could hurt land owned by one Indian tribe.

So we bring in huge ships with oil from the middle east that often run into trouble and spill into the ocean. The money we send allows dictators to force millions into slavery and prevents women from having basic human rights.

There are many reasons why a pipeline was preferable to the status quo

[BizarroLand]

We could dig a canal from South Carolina to Oregon so that ships can travel from China to the East Coast of America with a minimum of detour and save hundred of thousands if not millions of gallons of ship fuel every year. That's more environmental savings right there.

It would also create millions of American jobs and pour trillions into the economy with the increase in speed and quantity of shipping that can arrive for distribution, and curtail piracy around the Horn of Africa.

[tsol]

I mean do we really think the pipeline was built for environmental reasons? Since when do oil companies make decisions to maximize environmental- friendliness?

[ipaddr]

The environmental framework would be part of the approval process with the governments.