Vital Signs • Obama Administration Rejects Keystone Pipeline

Vital Signs

'Vital signs' are the basic physiological measures of functioning which health practitioners use to assess the gravity of a patient's predicament. A new book, Vital Signs: Psychological Responses to Ecological Crisis focuses not so much on our physical predicament, with so many of the Earth's systems severely stressed and beginning to fail - there are plenty of other places to read about this. Instead, it focuses on our psychological predicament, as news of the situation slowly penetrates our defences and we struggle as individuals and as a society to find an adequate response.

By 'vital signs' the authors also mean signs that such a response is beginning to take shape: signs of hope, signs of healing. They feel that ecopsychology has a distinctive voice and unique contributions to make. In doing so, they aim to facilitate debate and dialogue within the field, in the hope that this will lead eventually to more developed theory and practice. While there would in theory still be an important role for ecopsychology if we were not facing environmental meltdown - exploring the complex relationships between human and other-than-human, and the therapeutic value of bringing the two together - in practice ecopsychology has been completely shaped by a sense of catastrophic loss, of the irreversible destruction of complexity and the impending threat to the systems which sustain life on this planet. From this point of view, ecopsychology is part of a much larger movement seeking to develop awareness of climate change together with all the other developing ecological crises.

What distinguishes ecopsychology from many of the other players in this larger movement, however - apart from the psychological focus itself - is a very widespread perception of human beings as just one element in the global ecosystem; and an agreement, both ethical and practical, that humanity cannot save itself by throwing other species out of the sledge. The ecosystem stands or falls as a whole, human, other-than-human, and more-than-human; and a failure to recognise this is itself a symptom of our culture's dissociation from its place in the larger whole, which is one of the causal factors leading to our current situation.

Among people who have been working in this area for some time, there is a growing question: what if we fail? What if our society does not manage a transition to a carbon-free economy - and all of the other transformations of culture and practice which are required alongside this? In all probability time is getting extremely short; considerable damage to global ecosystems is already certain, and runaway 'tipping point' effects are predicted by many scientists. Although awareness of this crisis is far greater than it was a decade ago, there is still little sign of a serious shift in public attitudes. While the future can never be predicted with certainty, there is not much concrete basis for optimism. What then?

Obama Administration Rejects Keystone Pipeline

The Obama administration, on the basis of a recommendation by the U.S. State Department, this month rejected the Keystone crude oil pipeline project. The U.S. President stated that TransCanada’s application for the 1,700 mile pipeline was denied because the State Department did not have enough time to complete the review process.

350.org founder Bill McKibben reacted to the decision: “This isn't just the right call, it's the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he's too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact 'huge political consequences,' he's stood up strong. This is a victory for Americans who testified in record numbers, and who demanded that science get the hearing usually reserved for big money.”

Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer, stated: “While we are disappointed, TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL. We will re-apply for a Presidential Permit and expect a new application would be processed in an expedited manner to allow for an in-service date of late 2014.” According to the State Department, a new application will not be fast-tracked but trigger a new review process, although available data will inform the application process under specific guidelines.

In late summer 2011, environmental groups under the leadership of 350.org protested against the pipeline in front of the White House. They claimed that the oil it will carry from Canada’s tar sands from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico will pollute the entire American heartland, and that tar sands are among the most carbon-intensive of all the fossil fuels.