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Guest commentary on South America pipeline

(Reuters)

"As Gustavo Coronel points out in his Letter to the Editor in the Washington Post, the Venezuelan government should be spending more money on health, education and poverty in the country instead of using up the majority of natural gas and spending 30 billion dollars on a pipeline across Latin America. The pipeline would be detrimental for the environment because it would be crossing the Amazon, destroying plants and interrupting several indigenous communities. Although it may sound like a good idea for Latin America because it would lessen dependence on international markets and unite some politically divided countries, it is best to first deal with the more pressing social problems of the region."

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guest commentator offers a false choice. The pipeline offers the opportunity for countries with energy resources to control their use. It offers the opportunity for the governments in the region to create jobs. Most important, it is their choice -- rather than trying to stop them from building the pipeline on one hand, arguing that we know better, or having a multi-national build the pipeline, arguing that it knows better, it's time we let the people who own the resources to decide what should be done with them, because they know better.

March 03, 2006 7:42 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the first Anonymous. I think, in the long run, that the pipeline would be a good thing for Venezuala and it's neighbors. I do however, have concern over the impact on the Amazon and its' ecosystems.

March 04, 2006 11:06 AM

 

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