The Star Tribune’s editorial in support of the Keystone pipeline (“Trump acts sensibly on Keystone pipeline,” Feb. 1) is morally indefensible. At this critical time in our planet’s evolution, humans must find sources of energy that will not catastrophically alter our climate. Investing in fossil-fuel infrastructure takes us in exactly the wrong direction. Quoting from the lead article in this month’s issue of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences journal, Environmental Health Perspectives (“Multiple Threats to Child Health from Fossil Fuel Combustion: Impacts of Air Pollution and Climate Change,” https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/EHP299/), “Going beyond the powerful scientific and economic arguments for urgent action to reduce the burning of fossil fuels is the strong moral imperative to protect our most vulnerable populations.” If that weren’t enough, the economic arguments are also overwhelming. The only possible large source of sustainable, new, high-quality jobs to revive our industrial base is in the transformation of our energy and transportation infrastructures to clean fuels. Clean-energy jobs now outnumber those in oil, gas and coal extraction, and the potential for more new jobs is huge.
Gregory C. Pratt, Minneapolis
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The Star Tribune editorial was appropriately cautious about approving the Dakota Access pipeline and dead wrong on the Keystone XL project. The Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone pipeline was based on years of scientific analysis regarding the impact of Keystone on safety, the environment and our national security. It was not because climate-change activists unduly influenced the process. To suggest that this is an issue of “political clout” is an insult to citizens and their advocacy groups who genuinely care about the long-term environmental health of our planet.
A related and significant question is how does a pipeline full of the dirtiest oil from Canada, the construction of which will have minimal impact on job creation and U.S. energy independence, become a top priority of the Republican Party? Few permanent jobs will be created, and the vast majority of refined oil will be sold overseas. Keystone, of course, will be profitable for big oil companies here and in Canada.
The most significant reasons to oppose Keystone are the environmental implications:
• Tar sands oil is extremely dirty. Mining and refining it requires enormous amounts of energy, and its use results in negative effects on climate change.
• The likelihood of spills that foul land and water is too high.
• Expansion of the tar sands industry is a step in the wrong direction. Our planet faces a dire state of jeopardy. Approval of Keystone flies in the face of efforts to ensure a sustainable Earth.
• The Star Tribune’s rationale that the “the oil would just be transported in a different way” is flawed. There is no guarantee that Keystone will be completed and, more important, do we make the wrong decision because someone else may make the mistake anyway?
• Keystone is particularly important because Trump and the GOP majority in Congress are committed to gutting protections of our air, land and water.
Seek the facts for yourself. Minimal research will produce volumes of evidence to oppose the Republican agenda and the Keystone project in particular. You can align yourself with the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries and climate-change deniers. Or you can embrace an agenda that responsibly sustains our planet for future generations.
Phil George, Lakeville
TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS
Meet the people who are being hit the hardest by this policy
From 2004 to 2007, I served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in two “predominantly Muslim” countries much like those subjected to the Trump administration’s new restrictions. As a rural volunteer, Muslims were my neighbors, colleagues, students and friends. We lived together, worked together, endured 120-degree summers together. I am compelled to speak out in their defense, and against this self-destructive attempt to ban them from our shores.
In the Peace Corps, I learned what it is like to be a foreigner in an unfamiliar country: I looked different, spoke a different language, represented a different religion, and in a thousand ways struggled to adapt to a new home. As an outsider (whose country was waging unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), it would have been easy for people in my host village to view me with suspicion and distrust.
But they didn’t.
Instead, wherever I went, I was overwhelmed with the generosity, hospitality and large-heartedness of my Muslim neighbors. Despite great material poverty, they insisted that I visit them in their homes, share their meals, meet their loved ones and tell them about life in America. As a teacher, they entrusted me with their children. Again and again, they told me that they were not anti-American — that they admired the United States (if not necessarily our policies).
What a contrast with this administration’s cruelty. America is better than this — and the Muslim communities that welcomed this Peace Corps volunteer are better than it, too.
Greger B. Calhan, Minneapolis
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The other day, as I was teaching the specifics of the executive order to my adult refugee students, one of the students asked me if she could still go back to Somalia to visit her sick mother. I told her no, they don’t recommend travel now even if you have a green card. Another student asked me if it’s constitutional to single out one religious group. I said no but that the Constitution can be interpreted many ways. After some discussion about how an executive order works, one student said with tears in his eyes, “President Trump is trying to protect his people.” He didn’t mention that his wife and children were on schedule to come from one of those banned countries this month but now they aren’t. Then another student stood proudly in her dark blue hijab, beating her chest with one fist, and said, “Even with this, I would still give up my life and fight for this country, because I love this country.” These are the people we are banning from our country — the family-oriented, the critical thinkers, the gracious and the brave.
Elizabeth Fontaine, Minneapolis
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I do not care to hear that we will stop discriminating against Muslims when Muslim countries stop discriminating against Christians (“Welcome the other religion? Ok, Muslims: You go first,” Readers Write, Feb. 4).
When others display un-American values, my response is we are better than that. We will continue to behave with American values and respect our constitution.
In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I will not wait for our president to respect others before I do.
Ernest Neve, Minneapolis
RELIGION AND POLITICS
Another fine mess
Great, in addition to Citizens United we could get religious organizations putting money into politics (“Trump vows to ‘destroy’ limits on church politics,” Feb. 3). This is a very bad idea.
Belinda Flanagan, Bloomington
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Barry Goldwater once said that if the preachers ever control the party, we’re doomed. He was right. Now President Trump wants to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment in the name of free speech. Be careful what you ask for — very careful. My grandmother always said: “Once religion takes over government, government takes over religion. Now you’ve got a problem.”
Our founding fathers had the right idea with separation of church and state. Leave it alone.
Jeff Jacobs, St. Louis Park
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