“Who wants the U.S. to facilitate the dirtiest extraction of the dirtiest crude from tar sands in Canada’s far north?” asks New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

Well, first of all, the Canadians do! Second, if we won’t, the Chinese would be happy to facilitate (a point Friedman ignores). Canada and China have made it clear that if the U.S. doesn’t allow the pipeline to go south, they’ll make one that goes west to the Canadian coast. In other words, the oil is going to be pumped out no matter what. Moreover, the risks of a bad spill increase if we don’t build the pipeline. Oil tankers heading to China are a bigger threat to the environment than a pipe over or through dry land to American refineries.

But my aim isn’t to defend the pipeline, which strikes me as a no-brainer in every way. It’s to make a larger point. If the idea is that America is somehow “leading by example” when it kills projects like Keystone, or cracks down on oil drilling on federal lands, as Obama has done, then we’re not fooling anyone — not even the Canadians!

All around the world, governments are expanding their oil and gas operations.