Your post- #election2014 week in #environmentalism, #fracking, #Keystone

A roundup of several posts of mine on trending environmental topics.

First, the city of Denton, Texas, north of Dallas, did pass a fracking ban. And faces multiple lawsuits. I look at that, and my estimate of Denton's chance of prevailing. I actually think it's not bad.

Second, the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline from Canada, which President Barack Obama has kicked down the road for months now, can't be kicked down the road any longer with a GOP Senate. I take a look at his options and his likely course of action, and whether it's necessarily the end of the environmentalism world.

Third, many environmentalists, greeting a China-US greenhouse gas emissions accord with huzzahs and handsprings, probably think this indicates Obama will take a hard line on Keystone. Given that my skeptical eye calls the climate deal "toothless," with analysis of why I think that's the case that neither the mainstream media nor Obamiac environmentalist swooners provide, I think it's news for Keystone, but not necessarily as good as others think.

That said, unlike Alberta's tar sands, "tight" oil from shale formations, produced by fracking, seems to have a short, bubbly lifespan. I look at the latest news on that, and budgetary and other implications for the state of Texas.