
The last moments of Lac-Mégantic - ilamont
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lac-megantic-musi-cafe/article15656116/
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beloch
The use of railways for transporting petroleum products is booming thanks to
the backlash against pipelines such as keystone and gateway. Oil companies who
are fearful of incurring public outrage due to pipeline spills are only too
happy to hand tanker cars over to the care of railway workers. When
statistically inevitable accidents happen the oil producers can escape the
blame!

The Lac-Mégantic disaster shows why we should be building more pipelines.
Pipelines spill less per unit of volume shipped and usually avoid populated
centers to a much greater degree than railways. They're better for the
environment and safer for humans. Fossil fuels can be nasty stuff, but we
currently still need them and we require the ability to move them around
safely. The next time you see environmentalists protesting pipeline
construction, ask them why they're not chaining themselves to their local
railway tracks instead. We should do our best to avoid rolling bomb's through
beautiful towns like Lac-Mégantic on a daily basis.

~~~
revelation
That might be penny-wise and pound foolish. Pipelines cost billions to build
and they manifest our reliance on oil, which in turn costs much more lifes
simply through pollution than any number of railway accidents.

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trekky1700
Our reliance on oil is already there, whether you're building pipelines or
additional oil carrying railroad cars and running extra trains.

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revelation
The point here is not absolute, it's a relative one. Of course we already rely
on oil. But if a 7 billion pipeline makes us rely on oil for an extra year
(simple economics since its cheaper to transport through a pipeline than on
rail), the negative externalities caused by that extra year of fossil fuel
would dwarf the fatalities of railway accidents any time.

~~~
rilindo
The cost inflicted by oil is measured in centuries. A year or two saved may
not make a difference in terms of total lives lost:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/1...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/10471304/Carbon-
in-atmosphere-could-warm-planet-for-centuries.html)

Moving oil through the pipeline is bad, but it is less bad than moving by rail
in light of the probabilities of human loss (though the spillage is likely to
be bigger when there is an accident). At least there is an potential up of
rail being freed up to move something else safer - like people.

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euphemize
For those who haven't seen it, this is what the fire looked like, taken from
an amateur cam
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRb3JHsiqfA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRb3JHsiqfA).
Horrifying...

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davidy123
It's a really beautiful little town in a gorgeous setting and this was a
really shocking tragedy that shows how easily disasters can happen in an
increasing scale industrial world.

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pluc
That is one great navigational layout.

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embro
I live not too far from there and my thoughts are with you guys!

Stay strong!

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Globz
Same here! Stay strong guys! What a horrible tragedy!

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brunoqc
I remember receiving that news alert on my phone at about 1:30 am. It was
surreal.

