The news should continue to be reported until it is no longer news, especially given the large scale anti-American technological effort being mounted by our own government to protect the interests of Big Oil.
The protesters tried to cause a privately owned herd of buffalo to stampede into the construction site... This resulted in a number of buffalo and a horse being killed.
The protesters are causing damage to construction equipment owned by individual owner-operators. Small businesses. This isn't right. This isn't standing up to the government, or civil disobedience, it's destruction of private property.
And before someone accuses me of not caring about the people there... I grew up about 30 miles away from where the main protest is happening. These are my family members... on both sides.
You going to give up your car and not use any oil? If so, great, you've got a leg to stand on. But we have thousands of miles of pipelines across this country. Pipelines are more efficient than trains or trucks... as long as people still use oil, we still need oil pipelines. What's the alternative?
One of the largest drains on the US economy is the fossil fuels industry. There is no future for them. We, as a society, need to admit this, and move on.
How do we appologize to future generations, "Sorry, we raped the land, we killed innocent people, you're dying of cancer, because temporary money was more important instead of using better energy production methods"?
I've never heard of a solar farm having a sunlight pipeline leak, or earthquakes caused by fracking the ground for wind reserves, or people mining renewable energy and the mines collapsing and killing dozens.
People's lives have monetary value: they are assets that are worth something. It is not profitable to sacrifice assets of such high value for such unimportant things.
So, yes, morally and financially correct.
And the alternative? Tesla. Either buy their car, buy a car from someone that licensed their technology, or buy a brand new... ancient relic from the past.
We're in the process of moving on, but we can't stop everything while it's happening.
The fact that you think people in North Dakota should be driving Teslas... it's pretty shitty uneducated thing to say. Compassion, right? Understand what people need to do, what they want to do, and suggest alternatives. You aren't even trying, just spewing, "Oil is bad!" sound-bites. This isn't Reddit...
Please note that there isn't a single Tesla supercharging station in the entire state of North Dakota. 0. So... I guess you want those people to just... move? Die off? What exactly is your plan here for the people who live in North Dakota? Give up oil tomorrow, give up jobs that provide for their families, and... what exactly do they do next? It's a process, it'll take time.
https://www.tesla.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124...
You're clearly clueless and haven't ever been to North Dakota. Understand that most roads aren't paved, many people live in rural areas, when it rains... we're talking massive washouts and mud you can't drive a car through. Mud that a 4-wheel drive pickup gets stuck in.
And you're there saying those people, and everyone, should just instantly overnight drive a Tesla. Smart.
The oil pipeline represents the kind of economic engine that allows the people of North Dakota to be able to afford Teslas. Look at the state... it's filled with industrious people (very very low unemployment rate), who make not a lot of money (very very low average wage). Besides, nobody is talking about NOT having a pipeline, they're just talking about moving it. One way or the other a pipeline is getting built, it's just a matter of 10-15 miles one way or the other.
If I'm hearing you right, you'd rather ship oil from over seas (the amount of carbon released is staggering), or ship it via truck, because building a pipeline is wrong and bad and evil. Because... why exactly? It'll be a generation or more before we're off petroleum, won't happen over night. Does it make sense to be less efficient, and make it harder for the people in that state to earn money, while we wait?
The pipeline will function for the rest of our lives... we aren't getting off fossil fuels that quickly. Think about not only cars, but pickups, tractors, construction equipment... on our ranch we had a 50+ year-old bulldozer that we still used. Those sorts of big-engine items won't be replaced by solar power for a lifetime or more. Not like we could have afforded to buy a new bulldozer... fossil fuels... plan on them being here for our lifetimes. I understand climate change, I don't think it's a great thing, but it's just the world we live in.
The cost of solar power dropped as rapidly as it did because governments - in particular the government of Germany, though others followed along with similar programs - chose to heavily subsidize solar panel installations. This stimulated a rapid increase in the level of investment in solar panel technology and in the factories which produce them, which led to a rapid improvement in both power-generation efficiency and manufacturing efficiency; the whole industry scaled up, and now we live in a world where generating electricity via solar is cost-competitive with fossil fuels, with no further need for subsidy.
The fact that "the pipeline will function for the rest of our lives" is exactly why we need to stop building pipelines. We don't have the rest of our lives to wean ourselves off this petroleum addiction. It's not about replacing the pipeline with ships or trains; it's about making petroleum expensive and inconvenient so that non-petroleum-based solutions can become more competitive. We need petroleum to become more expensive, and we need the cost to rise quickly, because that's the only way we're going to stimulate the kind of investment that will enable the kind of scale-up that will let us accomplish the enormous infrastructure reinvestment we should have started working on long ago.
Yes, it sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are unsustainable, and it's going to be hard times ahead for them as they figure out other ways to live. It's going to suck much, much more for the many millions of people around the world on the verge of being displaced, impoverished, and probably even killed as a result of the climate change we are creating by continuing to burn petroleum products.
No, it won't happen overnight, but this is not overnight. We've known this for decades. We have already been running down the clock. We can't just magically demand more time, and more time, and more time, while continuing to do things the way our parents and grandparents did them.
If you think we can continue living this way for the rest of our lives, you really don't understand climate change. One way or another, our lives are all on the verge of changing. Do you want to choose how that change happens now, or wait til it is forced on you?
What's kind of funny... North Dakota has a LOT to gain from global warming. Look at their location. A flip to what you're saying is... "Hey, maybe all those people who live on the coasts should move someplace that could stand to have an extra 4-6 degrees added to the average annual temperature." I say that tongue in cheek, mostly to point out how silly it is to mandate change.
People have to decide for themselves, right? Freedom and all that. Telling one of the poorest states that they need to forgo economic improvement because people in coastal states say that global warming is bad... it's exactly like me saying you should move away from the coasts. You don't get to decide how others live any more than they get to decide how you live.
It gets old hearing, "oil is bad" -- we've certainly heard all the doom and gloom for a long time. People need viable alternatives. Just saying, "Yes, it sucks for the people of North Dakota that their lifestyles are unsustainable..." you aren't going to get anyone to side with you. Not your point, but you also realize that the power of government derives from the consent of the governed -- right?
I split my time growing up in Seattle and North Dakota... and I'm quite purple as a result. It's important to see the big picture. The reason Tesla is tying in self-driving cars to electric cars. They know that as soon as more people start driving electric cars... the price of oil is going to tank. Even with amazing strides towards solar, wind, hydro... because of those strides even... we're faced with 50+ more years of oil. As oil prices fall... it's just that much harder to buy an electric car. They need a hook... and self-driving is just that.
But it's not like we have to cut off all oil use tomorrow. Especially in more rural areas, places that can absorb the CO2, places like North Dakota... the places that have too many people, where nature can't possibly hope to keep up... those are the places that need to stop using oil. Right? So putting the burden on North Dakota... cities, people in cities should bear the lion share because they're the ones causing the most damage.
You're the one that wants to ship oil overseas. The oil that Energy Transfer Partners intends to pump through the DAPL is not for domestic use. They promised otherwise, of course. They also promised that this pipeline would provide jobs, which conveniently ignored the truck drivers the pipeline would replace.
The DAPL oil is intended to be exported[1]. This has the convenient effect of allowing the very dirty shale oil to be sold to countries that have weaker carbon regulations. ETP (and those that fund them) is trying to work around environmental regulations for profit. The only connection to the US economy or oil supply is the damage their pipelines will do to the ecosystem.
I realize it's hard to break free from propaganda once it's affected you, but I recommend verifying the facts and investigating the larger situation before believing talking points that happen to align with big business profits.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/09/01/dakota-access-export/