Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last year, you’ve heard at least a little about the Keystone pipeline.

This February, Nebraska courts shot down a law that would allow for the Keystone pipeline to be routed through Nebraska. Many people that are uninformed about the pollution that will occur as a result of the pipeline may feel that the Keystone pipeline is a good and economically sound idea, but, in my opinion, they would be wrong. First, I should explain what the Keystone pipeline is for those who do not know.

The Keystone pipeline is an oil pipeline that would be approximately 2,000 miles long, stretching from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. This pipeline would benefit many of the giant oil corporations that are invested in Canada’s tar sands and would make the extraction of the dirty tar sand’s oil profitable. According to the Friends of the Earth (FOE) network, the pipeline would close to double the import of this dirty oil into the United States.

However, oil extraction happens everywhere, so why would this be so much worse than in other places? The answer is that the pollution produced from the tar sand’s oil is much greater than the pollution produced by conventional oil. In fact, FOE also states that the pollution is three to four times greater than that of normal oil, and the pollution from this oil would almost certainly have devastating climate changing effects.

Not only would the pipeline cause irreversible climate changing effects such as the runaway greenhouse effect, but it would also lead to a large amount of forest destruction, water waste and pollution and devastating damage to the indigenous animals and people of the areas around the pipeline. And, as if all of those things weren’t bad enough, the possibility of oil spills on a grand scale would be large, especially in the early years of pipeline production.

This pipeline is an extremely important piece of worldwide news for those concerned with preservation of the environment and the diminishing of global warming. This should be especially true for many Nebraskans, as the pipeline is hoping to have its route go through Nebraska. These plans for a Nebraska route may add revenue to the state significantly. However, the effects on the environment and the damage that this pipeline would cause greatly outweigh any benefit that the pipeline could hope to offer.

Environmental preservation and the switch to cleaner, more reliable fuel sources should be something that everyone finds important, as fossil fuels will eventually run out (if we don’t destroy the planet through over-pollution first). The Keystone pipeline would go directly against the progressive movement that the world should be moving in, however, and would only lead to irreversible environmental problems down the road.

I think that Nebraska, and every state for that matter, should take no part in the building of this pipeline. Thankfully, the pipeline needs the approval of the presidential administration to begin construction (as it would be an international pipeline), which President Obama has yet to approve.