Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker article about the Keystone XL Pipeline project is both insightful and depressing.

The piece dissects the issue’s genesis and history, finding the proposed pipeline to be a climate change symbol seized by wealthy activists seeking to influence national politics, while advancing their own political ambitions.

Unfortunately, in selecting Keystone XL opposition as the poster child for US climate change mitigation, science-based research and analysis have largely been cast aside. Much research and literature on the issue suggest constructing the pipeline would have a limited impact on global carbon dioxide emissions levels. The international oil market’s complex nature and realities have also been selectively ignored.

The worst part is the Obama Administration appears to recognize that Keystone XL is not the end-all-be-all with regard to climate change that its opponents make it out to be. Worse still, the activists themselves recognize this fact according Lizza’s piece:

Whether or not the pipeline was the correct battle to wage over climate change, it is now Obama’s. “Sometimes you don’t get to pick the perfect fight,” [Tom] Steyer said. “Sometimes, someone punches you in the face and you’re in the fight.”

In this case, the activists led by Tom Steyer and Bill McKibben did the punching. “Politicians very rarely lead, despite the fact that they talk about leadership in every speech. They typically follow”, former Clinton and Gore staffer Chris Lehane is quoted as saying in the article.

This depressing insight shows that money and influence truly power the US political process. If wealthy groups and individuals put enough time, money and publicity behind an issue, elevating it toward the top of national discourse, then politicians can be forced to address it even if science-based analysis does not clearly support the message being sold.