Jeff Goodell Oil Quotations

Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.

But Big Oil and Big Coal have always been as skilled at propaganda as they are at mining and drilling. Like the tobacco industry before them, their success depends on keeping Americans stupid.

Is it in our national interest to overheat the planet? That's the question Obama faces in deciding whether to approve Keystone XL, a 2,000-mile-long pipeline that will bring 500,000 barrels of tar-sand oil from Canada to oil refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

In reality, studies show that investments to spur renewable energy and boost energy efficiency generate far more jobs than oil and coal.

Although most Americans don't know it, the U.S. gets more oil from Canada than it does from the entire Middle East.

In any crass political calculation, drilling for oil will always win more votes than putting a price on carbon. But if I recall what I was taught in fifth-grade American government class, we elect presidents to do more than crass political calculations.

Although most Americans don't know it, the U.S. gets more oil from Canada than it does from the entire Middle East.

If you think Wall Street firms have it good, you haven't looked closely at Big Oil.

Obama wants to be thought of as the president who freed us from foreign oil. But if he doesn't show some political courage, he may well be remembered as the president who cooked the planet.