From The New York Times. Minnesota Gov. signed off on final water permits for Enbridge to complete an expansion of its Line 3 Pipeline. December 28, 2020

The new section of pipeline will allow the pumping of oil sands and other forms of crude oil from Alberta to Wisconsin. It will cut through Indigenous treaty lands along the way. Despite pending lawsuits, construction has already started.

This is not just another pipeline, but a potential ‘climate bomb’ as it will facilitate the production of one of the most carbon-intensive fuels on the planate for decades to come. An environmental impact assessment of the project found the potential impact of the pipeline’s carbon output to be 193 million tons per year, the equivalent of 50 coal-fired plants or 38 million vehicles on the road.

In addition to this massive carbon cost, the destructive mining of the tar sands will affect the environment of Alberta’s boreal forests permanently. And if the pipelines leak, the sludgy mixture is almost impossible to clean up. The pipelines route will run through two watersheds draining directly into Lake Superior. The Great Lakes contain 84 percent of North America’s available freshwater and the pipeline is an existential threat to our water supply.

Young people are chaining themselves beneath pipeline trucks, clamping themselves to bulldozers, facing down semi trucks. It is unbearable. They know exactly what is at stake.