A Dystopian Future Emerges for the Zombie Keystone XL Pipeline
Every month, I assemble a round-up of stories I’m following and issues I’m covering, with palate cleansers at the end.
The Keystone XL pipeline died a few years ago. It wasn't just that Joe Biden canceled the cross-border permit for the project but also that U.S. oil production continued to grow under his watch. Meanwhile, under Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, of the Liberal Party, the Trans Mountain pipeline was completed, connecting the Alberta oil sands with export markets in the Pacific, and relieving industry urgency for an outlet. In short, four years of liberal support for fossil fuels on both sides of the border mean the market isn't great for U.S. import of expensive-to-produce bitumin, or tar sands oil.
And yet Trump still plans to announce the KXL pipeline's rebirth on day 1 of his administration, three unnamed sources told Politico. KXL is a brand name that represents unconditional support for fossil fuel production — regardless of whether it makes economic sense, regardless of flooding so bad it drowns mountains or drought so deep it consumes most of the country, and regardless of whether anyone actually intends to build the thing.
Alongside Trump's people, the Alberta government is also pushing hard to make KXL happen. However, the pipeline parent company TC Energy is so uninterested, it recently spun off the oil pipeline network KXL was a part of into a new company called South Bow. In this era of unreality, the project's completion is still possible, but it's hard to imagine. I'd look instead to KXL's appendages to understand the infrastructure that best sums up our ecological future.
TC Energy now focuses on transporting gas. A good bet, CEO Francois Poirier told CBC, considering the continued shutdown of coal plants alongside the boom in construction of energy-needy data centers to power artificial intelligence. Trump's promise to complete LNG export facilities means any excess gas can be sold to faraway markets, likely to be branded with promises of improved national security. The fuel also continues to be branded as climate-friendly, despite numerous studies showing how harmful gas is to the climate and health.
Meanwhile, buried KXL pipeline parts were dug up out of the ground and sold. The buyer? Cadiz, Inc., a deeply controversial company that has long sought to pipe water from an aquifer under the Mojave desert to clients across the increasingly thirsty Southwest.
As the L.A. Times put it in a recent column, "It’s hard to think of a California company that carries more toxic baggage than Cadiz Inc." For decades, Cadiz has been something of a poster child for dystopian water privatization. The land that would have to be disrupted for pipeline construction is ecologically delicate, the volume of water to be removed has raised environmental concerns, and the company's money situation is a mess.
Cadiz is now attempting to rebrand as a champion of environmental justice, pointing to support from a self-styled environmental justice group called Groundswell for Water, which has received money from Cadiz. Groundswell got in trouble earlier this year for using farmworker organizing legend Dolores Huerta's photo in their promo material, prompting her to write a letter to legislators calling them an "astroturf group" that "seeks to pit organizations of color against environmental groups."
David Bernhardt, Trump's last Interior secretary, had previously worked as a lobbyist for Cadiz, keeping the project on life support with federal approvals. The Biden Administration ruled that a new water pipeline would require extensive federal environmental review. However, with Trump back in office its future has brightened. Perhaps Cadiz's water pipeline will represent the true reincarnation of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The water the KXL pipes would transport is known as "fossil water," because it entered the aquifer when mammoths roamed the area. It's a fitting symbol for the era we find ourselves in. It's now all but impossible that temperature rises will be limited enough to avoid deeply destructive climate chaos. It's easier than ever to imagine a time when water will become more expensive than tar sands oil.
What I've Been Up to:
I've been working away on a couple juicy freelance stories to publish in December or January, and then a podcast series that will run before winter's through. In the meantime, I made the leap from Twitter to Bluesky where you can follow me @alleenbrown.bsky.social — here. Bluesky lets you make these lists of people you recommend others follow, called starter packs, and I made one full of freelance environmental journalists you can follow if you're also getting started on the app.
If you're in New York and want to say hi, I'll be speaking at a panel this Wednesday December 4 on labor conditions for incarcerated writers and creative workers, hosted by this super cool organization called Empowerment Avenue. Currently and formerly incarcerated writers will share their experiences advancing their work from the inside, while a speaker from W.A.G.E. and I will talk about how artists and freelance media workers are fighting for fair pay on the outside. I'll be rep'ing Freelance Solidarity Project, of course.
Other stories I’m following:
In his second term, Donald Trump may force the Supreme Court to take up First Amendment questions it has long avoided, wrote Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a column for the Guardian. Jaffer points, as an example, to an important Supreme Court decision that said that the government couldn't prevent journalists from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The ruling did not say whether or not the government could then prosecute journalists for publishing the papers. Also unanswered is whether journalists are protected from the government forcing them to reveal their sources. A bill moving through Congress called the Press Act would shield journalists from being forced to reveal sources, but its passage is no sure thing. Also uncertain is whether Senate Democrats will vote down a law that would give the Treasury Secretary the power to label non-profits as terrorism supporters and pull their tax-exempt status. Inevitably, this is most threatening to organizations, including news outlets, that dare criticize Israel's war and genocide in Gaza.
"White Christian fundamentalist assimilation is on the horizon for tribal nations once again."
In October, reporter Kalen Goodluck launched a newsletter called No Frontiers. He's got a post up about what the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 has in store for Indian Country, and his assessment is distressing. He says the Project represents "the greatest twenty-first century threat to tribal sovereignty and Indian rights since the 1950’s assimilationist policies sought to dispose of 'tribal status' altogether." The primary concern of the policy blueprint, where it comes to tribal land, is to encourage fossil fuel development. Meanwhile, it would sever the federal government's trust responsibilities to provide "health care, sacred site protections, Head Start education, housing, tribal loan programs." How much Trump will adhere to its recommendations is to be seen. I want to believe that he won't follow through on some of this stuff, but the next entry demonstrates how abruptly a nation's politics can turn to dismantling Indigenous people's rights.
In New Zealand, a libertarian lawmaker named David Seymour is pushing a bill to reinterpret the government treaty with the Māori people, known as the Treaty of Waitangi. Seymour describes the treaty as upholding an ethno-state — a framing that reminds me of U.S.-based organizations' claims that Native rights are based on race and thus should be dismissed. What this misses is that it's not race that underpins Indigenous rights, it's nation-to-nation agreements that allowed for the very existence of the U.S. and New Zealand. Although the bill is unlikely to pass, it's sparked massive protests and a now-famous haka in the middle of Parliament. The objections are tied in part to the fact that, even without this law, New Zealand's government is already finding other ways undermining Māori rights.
It's worth watching what happens in New Zealand. Seymour has links to a global libertarian group of think tanks, Atlas Network, and he used to work at a Canadian think tank called the Frontier Centre that has called the discovery of graves of Indigenous children at a residential school a "hoax." (I wrote about Frontier for Drilled earlier this year.) Only a few years ago, Seymour was espousing much more Māori-friendly politics, but this piece from the Sunday Star Times demonstrates how quickly that flipped.
"Some of his last words that morning, the lawyer said, were 'Man, it’s so hot in here.'”
Uncontrolled heat caused at least four deaths at a Miami-area prison with no air conditioning and sparked health crises for others, a new Florida lawsuit alleges. Attorneys are looking to Texas, where a similar suit forced the state to at least act like it was trying to protect prisoners — including elderly people and people with serious health conditions — from heat that predictably tops 100 degrees in hot months. Texas's stopgap measures have not been enough, and a new Texas suit regarding dangerous prison heat is also making its way through that state's court system. Yet another wrongful death suit was recently filed in Illinois, indicating dangerously hot conditions even in northern states.
"In summer, our dry season, the River inexplicably turns bright green."
For Sumaúma, writer Wajã Xipai investigates why the waters of the Amazon's Iriri River now turn a neon green in the summers, and what this means for the Xipai people's world.
Palate Cleansers
I cover topics that are heavy and distressing to take in, so I'm ending these posts with things that make me feel grounded: food, nature, community.
Something Delicious: The Best Sweet Potatoes
I eat delicious things every Thanksgiving, even though I get why it's a bad holiday based on harmful lies. Lots of us are off work, and I love to eat and spend time with friends and family. As a kid I wasn't super into traditional Thanksgiving food, but I always loved these super simple and satisfying sweet potatoes and I still do today.
This is a non-recipe. The measurements are imprecise and can be adjusted to your taste or volume. My mom makes them with yellow mustard, but I like to go for some extra tang, with dijon.
Ingredients:
Two to four sweet potatoes, or enough to fill a square pan when sliced
3/4 stick of salted butter (or unsalted, then add salt to taste)
3/4 cup of brown sugar (more or less)
A tsp or Tbsp of dijon mustard
Boil the sweet potatoes in salty water until they're tender. Let them cool, then remove the skin. Slice them lengthwise or widthwise, thickly, and arrange them in the bottom of a square pan (or whatever pan you want).
On the stove, melt the butter, then add the brown sugar and mustard. Stir and cook until it's well combined. Taste and adjust.
Pour and smear the thick sauce over the potatoes in the pan, then stick them in the oven at 350 degrees. (The oven temp isn't so particular — yesterday I put them in at 400 degrees, because that's what was happening in the oven at the time.) Let them bubble for awhile, maybe like a half hour, or until whenever you want to eat them.
Garden Update: Bursts of Red Amid the Gray
When I got back to Brooklyn in November, after a long reporting trip, followed by a visit home to Minneapolis, I was surprised to see life on the deck. The space had been abandoned to this autumn's confusion of unseasonable heat and drought. Wind left patio furniture toppled at odd angles, and some plants were crisped to a pale gold color. Yet little bursts of red pierced the chaotic landscape. A whole crop of tiny, slightly shriveled, Thai chiles will still be usable. A cluster of green and orange cherry tomatoes will make a roasty treat. A geranium threatens to bloom yet.
Community Bulletin Board: Volunteering for Asylum Seekers
South Brooklyn Sanctuary and Mixteca are holding monthly asylum clinics for immigrants who can't afford attorneys, and they're looking for bilingual volunteers. Demand is especially high given the incoming administration's promise of mass deportations. To learn more email volunteersupport@southbksanctuary.org or check out Mixteca and South Brooklyn Sanctuary's web sites for more info about other volunteer opportunities.
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