Pipelines, BC wines and freezing in the dark.

Pipelines, BC wines and freezing in the dark.

 

Personally, I am in favor of making one giant leap and converting to clean energy, but I realize that it will take time. I know that Trump and his likes “love the uneducated” and I know why. We are all educated by Professors, scientists and PhDs and my teachers taught the same thing over and over. The teachers were saying that if we don’t stop pollution, we will destroy the world including ourselves. They also taught moderation. I remember a Geography professor encouraging us to get into the habit of using fewer paper towels and even less toilet paper.

 

My University did a lot of oil research, but you couldn’t go a day without being warned about the danger that oil presented to our future. The saving grace,  they believed, was that oil would run out and humans will develop new ways to produce power. This all happened in the seventies. We didn’t yet experience some of the worst oil spills, and side effects of fracking, so only emissions were factored in.

 

Years went by, and a lot more oil was discovered and with it came oil wars, regime changes, and new military expenditures to defend those who owned and transported oil. Alberta became an oil province and didn’t develop a lot of new industries. We didn’t use the oil revenues to plan for the future. Oil politics ruled our world. Oil politics and military industries are not “cool” with today’s young people.

 

We were ready for oil to start taking a step back and even had the Heritage Fund, started by Peter Lougheed, and so did Norway. If you have a computer watch: Norway's Lasting Oil Wealth, https://youtu.be/QKbD08I6odw  The only difference was that Norway saved all the oil revenues for future generations while our Heritage fund mysteriously disappeared. A difference in political orientation and business goals I presume.

 

The Europeans are more concerned with their people, while we are more concerned with business. You can see it in every aspect of life. In North America, most people are preparing for the day they may be rich, (ha ha) so they defend business interests instead of citizens security.  Europeans take more holidays, longer time to raise their kids, better dining and don’t mind paying taxes for what improves the quality of life. We are worried that IF we become rich, the Government may take our money, which we don’t yet have, and give it to people on welfare. This belief is more pronounced in Alberta, for example, then in British Colombia.

 

Now Alberta and Saskatchewan in tow, are preparing for war. Just as the Russians did to Ukraine, Alberta’s Conservative leaning NDP is threatening to shut off oil to BC, if the province will not allow oil and profits to flow. We the citizens are fighting for jobs, but most profits will probably not stay here.

 

The Pass Herald is unique since its distributed both in BC and Alberta. gems like this hardly exist anymore. A locally owned Newspaper not bought and shut down like so many other newspapers were. Here are my suggestions to British Columbians.

 

To our BC neighbors and especially Premier Horgan and his government, this Albertan would like to say: Your concerns are my concerns exactly. I don’t want to see a leaky oil pipe anywhere in beautiful British Columbia. Above all, I am very much against polluting the atmosphere with the use of oil, especially dirtier oil than most, but our time has not yet come. We must build up our capacity for clean energy first as Germany did. We must allow our customers in the Orient to do the same. They are lagging behind on clean energy but are catching up fast.

 

Please review the old archived movie, “Oil Across The Rockies.” about the first pipeline from 1953. The pipe across the mountains was placed there for the benefit of your province and so far, never leaked. The people of BC benefited from it all these years. The new pipeline will make life easier for people on the other side of the world. They are human too, and they need the oil to tie them up until they come to our level of being able to use energy wisely while preserving the atmosphere.

 

You can place all kinds of safety measures on the way, use unionized labor and negotiate all kinds of safety measures. You are a trusted popular leader, and without your personal commitment to help this temporary project it may not take off. Please do it and let Canadians benefit from our resources before their use expire. We can even regulate how much of the oil revenues will be allowed to leave the country and how much must stay and circulate in the Canadian economy. Being a BC native, you probably know that the easiest way is to guide your canoe with the stream making small adjustments.

 

To our kin the BC First Nations people, who take the most risk for the smallest gains, I like to say. Please. Let one era finish in peace and new era clean and bright dawn. The world will be using oil for a little longer, and as long as it does, Canada is in the game. We have oil and greed is greater than fear. Investors don’t care about the world as you and I do; they simply want more things that money can buy. It is not worth your lives now when the world is already transitioning. Just like the horses disappeared, so will oil.

 

Let's make sure that you are getting your fair share out of this venture and that it is clear to all that this is not a handout but your fair share. Let's ensure that the pipeline is as safe as can be and that upon the first leak it will be shut off and clean up will be done to your satisfaction. It is probably the last pipeline. In the new contract, all governments must declare steps which allow for coastal people to earn a livelihood safely in traditional ways and never again be viewed as freeloaders as was done by the old treaties. As the world moves to clean energy, oil prices will keep going down, and the flow will naturally stop. Already less and fewer people are investing in oil and in the banks that finance it.

 

Make a stand but do it for a good contract not for shutting oil off before the world is ready. Ensure that you are viewed as the defenders of a new clean world, not the people who impoverished your neighbors, which is how you are being portrayed by the Alberta oil addicts now.  You see oil as a threat to mother Earth, but people here see it as instant prosperity.

 

It took the planet millions of years to produce the stored sun energy we call oil and gas. Oil is a good thing if used in moderation. Our world’s oil reserves are here for the benefits of all future human generations, not just for a few rich people at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Fossile fuel is like opium. In small amounts it can control pain but if a human becomes addicted he will kill himself.

 

If you argue about immediate economic benefits, the Right wins, and if you argue about human survival, the Left wins. Canada has been governed by people who were interested in quick profits for business and now chose a government that is halfway for the common people. The next step is to elect leadership that is completely pro-people and pro-environment as the BC people seem to have already done. We can’t escape the period in which we are forced by economics to rape the Earth simply to have some jobs for some time. Soon enough people will understand that the solution is to change the whole system and go for it. We can’t be bought simply for the privilege of having a way to make a living, called job, and use our work to destroy the world that sustains us.

 

It is not easy to speak the way I do in Wild Rose country. I was once a Progressive Conservative, believe it or not, in the days of the most popular premier of Canada, Peter Lougheed. Those days the party was doing Progressive actions using Conservative means. We had a booming economy and so much was done for the average folks, like me. Lougheed  built my University. Then came Ralph Klein, who changed the party. I knew him when he was a mayor, and he changed views. Concern for people diminished, care for Canada disappeared, and the need for business profits surpassed all other sentiments. The Progressive left the Conservative. Let's fix the problems and not fight each other like caged animals.


A shorter version was published in the Pass Herald.