As my (belated) Christmas present to the extreme segment of the environmentalist movement that is holding up the Keystone XL pipeline, I am sending this gift-wrapped headline:

Gulf Coast Sees Record Tourism Rebound after Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill

Nobody wants something as tragic as the BP oil spill to happen. The toll on human lives and the economy of the Gulf Coast is horrible to contemplate (and experiencing it had to be far more painful).

Still, as Bruce Thompson observes on the American Thinker this headline is a “rebuke to President Obama.” Here is what the president said in the wake of the spill:

Already this oil spill is the worst environment disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it's not a single day event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic that we will be fighting for months and even years.

Yes, it was terrible, but the Gulf Coast and its people have come back. That is what both nature and human beings do.  

The turnaround is particularly evident in the figures for tourism, which has risen 61 percent in the Panhandle, 51 percent in Alabama, and 7 percent in Mississippi. Louisiana’s numbers aren’t in, but it looks as if they will be good.

As Thompson points out:

It kind of spoils the narrative to have the Gulf Coast rebound so well and so fast! But be sure to watch the video of Obama's dramatic reading. You see it all, the drilling moratorium, the green energy agenda that will provide millions of jobs (at Solyndra perhaps?), the evil energy corporations and their reckless polluting ways.

All of this baloney was a last ditch effort to pass Cap & Trade and thereby seize control of the energy business and a vast new stream of tax revenue for his "social justice" agenda.

The Keystone XL project, which would create jobs in a time when they are desperately needed, has been thoroughly vetted with regards to its environmental impact. (Read Vaclav Smil's important response to the environmentalist charges about Keystone LX here.)

But too many people are still held hostage to a false narrative of environmental gloom and doom.

The revival of the Gulf proves them wrong.