Scarcity of Jobs for the People - Essay Example

Researchers have emphasized the need to abstain from doing any activities that are suspected to affect the environment negatively. However, the gravity of the problem of unemployment in the USA outweighs the gravity of all other issues. People need money to attain their necessities and live and psychologically satisfying and healthy life. One can not estimate the importance of the preservation of the environment when one does not have enough money to have a reasonably good lifestyle. To reach a general agreement with the people to preserve the environment and motivate them to play their individualistic and collective roles in the preservation of the environment, it is imperative that the government of the USA creates jobs for the people and provide them with their basic needs. “351 major infrastructure projects in the United States are caught up in regulatory or public acceptance hurdles (sometimes the former triggered by the latter), including almost every kind of energy infrastructure imaginable from coal mining to transmission lines to solar or wind power generation facilities” (Ladislaw and Pumphrey).

            The purpose of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is to provide a means for the transportation of unprocessed bitumen from Canada to Texas. The unprocessed bitumen would be processed in the petrochemical complex in Texas to make plastics, chemicals, and fuel which would be consumed within the USA and also exported to the willing countries around the world. This is an opportunity for the USA as the USA is currently running short of domestic oil reserves.

            Construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has been heavily opposed and criticized by environmentalists because it tended to raise certain environmental issues. The first and foremost issue is of “hyper-development of Canada's tar sands in the service of another country's industrial economy” (Topp). The USA will have to pay a huge price for the project in terms of the damage caused to the environment. The project will cause the landscape to be brutally scarred. At every stage of processing of Canadian bitumen into plastic, chemicals, and fuel, a lot of carbon will be released into the environment. The reserves in Canada have already enlisted Canada among the greatest sources of carbon all over the world. In addition to the regular environmental concerns, a very important hurdle in the way of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is the Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer forms part of a massive underground mega-system which is known as the High Plains Aquifer. “The system covers 174,000 square miles beneath eight different states, ranging north-south from North Dakota to Texas, and from Nebraska in the east all the way west to parts of New Mexico” (Pierce). This is a very important aquifer as it is the source of water for 20 percent of the irrigated land in the USA (Pierce). If the Keystone XL pipeline’s construction is allowed, it would run through the aquifer in Nebraska. So the dilemma for the leaders and the management is that if the project is allowed, it creates a lot of environmental hazards for the USA and if it is not allowed, a potential source of jobs for the Americans is eliminated.

            Practically, “[t]he Obama administration…formally rejected a bid by Canadian energy company TransCanada to build a $7 billion oil pipeline linking the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico” (Tapper et al.). The best way for the concerned authorities is to allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline because it has immense potential to give a boost to the American economy. The environmental hazards have been overestimated. Nevertheless, alteration of the pipeline’s route should be considered so that it may not run through the aquifer. If that is not possible, suitable measures need to be taken to minimize the impacts of its construction on the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska.