I don’t give a shit about the oil industry. I do care about leaving money in the ground when it is viable to get it out. When we no longer have a need, or someone is no longer willing to pay for buggy whips, we move on. The difference here is that others are telling people to stop producing a currently viable product, a product being produced globally by other countries, and also being used by those telling us to stop doing it, with no offer of compensation in lieu of.
If we develop a sustainable and cheap alternative to fossil fuels then it solves the issue with climate change. And if it is cheap enough we can use the energy to extract carbon from the atmosphere and potentially reverse the current damage. What is so unimaginable about that?
I don’t think it’s viable. I don’t know (or care) what the politics of the source of this material are but they lay the situation out pretty starkly in terms of straight logistics. Alberta oil is dirty (literally, as in laden with toxic chemicals that must be removed), expensive to refine and takes longer to be shipped in smaller quantities. See here for details:
Under Harper, no one mentioned western alienation. But times were good and Harper is Western.
Alberta has some cause for anger since Trudeau favours the Laurentian axis of Ontario and Atlantic and Quebec gets a degree of preferential treatment.
Alberta made decisions to keep tax rates low and could have done a better job of diversifying its economy.
The equalization system is a mess.
I understand Western alienation but don’t think Wexit is likely, feasible or all that popular, grumbling aside. I also doubt Texas is going anywhere.
OK, thanks!
It’s completely imaginable. We both just imagined it! But fusion has been the illusive dream for decades. Doesn’t seem like a super great “Plan A”,
If we’re shooting for the moon technology wise, how about we just create an algae that turns Bitumen into rechargeable batteries?
How about we let those who want to extract it make the business case for if is viable, for them, to do so? 2.8M bbl/d of production (2017) is going somewhere to someone who wants it. Oil sands facts and statistics | Alberta.ca
Well, think how long it will take if we don’t invest in making it work.
Some of the recent comments really highlight some of the problems.
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The so-called attack on Alberta’s energy industry is, in part, the fault of Alberta. They’ve had plenty of time to diversify their industry, except …
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Unfortunately, a fair number of people want to address climate change, buuuuuuuuuut only if it isn’t going to cost them anything. This leads to exactly what I was talking about earlier. Everybody pointing elsewhere, and nothing happening.
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I want to reiterate that inaction on climate change will cause permanent damage to many of Earth’s ecosystems. That’s bad; however,
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If you don’t give a flying fig about ecosystems, one can only hope that you care about human beings. And climate change will kill tens to hundreds of millions of humans between 2030 and 2050. On the low end. Let me put it another way. The low end estimate is for a number of human deaths equal to two World Wars IIs. Now, if you don’t care about human lives, then there’s nothing more to be said.
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Let’s say you don’t give a flying fig about the humans that will die, because most of them won’t be in North America or Western Europe. People don’t just starve to death because we in the West say “Sorry, we’re not giving up anything, so would you kindly just die.” No, starving people react, and they react violently. A lack of food has been the driver behind many of history’s political instabilities. Political instablity leads to conflict. E.g. Syria (did you know that Syria civil war is in part due to climate change?) And here’s the thing about small conflicts. They have a tendency of attracting the global powers who have an interest in that region of the world. E.g. Syria. Now Syria did not become a trigger point for anything bigger, but the more times you roll the dice, the more likely you are to come up with snakes eyes (or for D&D players, a 1). These small regional conflicts can spin out of control and engulf the globe. See World War I. The rising climate crisis is going to see an increase in regional conflicts, mass migrations, and mass starvation. A scale of human misery never before seen on this planet. And while the direct effects may never reach us, you can sure as heck be guaranteed that the indirect effects from global instablity will. People don’t just die because we say so.
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Uzi, science doesn’t work that way. One of the projects on which I am collaborating is finding a genome modification for a single species of plant such that it will absorb more carbon as it grows. I just recently started on this project, but they’ve been working on it for six years. They think they’re getting closer, perhaps another 2-4 years of work. But even if they make the discovery, then it will be another at least another four years before it could be deployed in a wide-scale fashion. Fusion technology has been 10 years away now for about 70 years. You cannot count on a miracle cure being found. It is great to hope, and I certainly hope a technological solution is found, because it is increasingly obvious that we’re simply not going to do anything. Burning all of the oil for economic gain and then hoping we can undo the damage before it is too late (note, it is practically already too late to avoid the minimal damage that will be caused by climate change, i.e. the 1.5C global increase is virtually impossible to attain) is not realistic.
“Diversify their industry” is meaningless twaddle. The economy is what it is, asking the government to guess how it should “diversify” is a terrible idea, and the money will flow to wherever it makes sense for it to flow unless the government gets in the way. The government should let the oil industry produce oil. By all means charge a carbon tax - that is by far the best wayto handle climate change, though Canada really can’t do this on its own - and offset it with tax cuts elsewhere, but the weird hostility to the oil industry should end.
If Alberta’s economy diversifies, then it will. It will do so one way or another as the market dictates.
Well, here’s a modest proposal if you ‘give a flying fig’ about climate change and are willing to pay a price for it: End equalization, and share in the pain Alberta is facing. And if Alberta continues to slide, perhaps the people of Quebec could start sending a few billion our way, under the same equalization concept.
I mean, because if Alberta leaves Canada and ramps up its oil production, that will hurt the planet. So if you care about the planet, perhaps it’s time to share in the cost of saving it.
Alberta leaving Canada and ramping up its oil production is not in any way a realistic thing to be concerned about.
Fusion power, it’s been said, is just twenty years away, and always will be.
That’s fine with me,
I don’t know if ending equalization is a good idea. As long as P.E.I is part of Canada, I want them to be able to afford some minimum standards. There are probably a number of changes to equalization that I could agree with Albertans on though, I bet.
I would agree to ending equalization if Alberta’s economy is no longer strong enough to support it. Addressing climate change shouldn’t be Alberta’s burden. It has to be global (well, mainly industrialized countries). Everybody has to take a bit of a hit. So, if Alberta agrees to big reductions over time in extracting oil, and their economy cannot sustain equalization, then equalization should end. And if that makes Alberta a have not province, then they should receive equalization payments from whomever the have provinces are at that point.
Of course, there’s the reality that we cannot simply cut out 7% of the National GDP overnight. Even if that were necessary, it still wouldn’t be realistic. But we should make every reasonable effort to reduce our economic dependence on the export and/or refinement of fossil fuels. And as in my previous sentence, that should not be Alberta’s burden, that should be Canada’s burden.
The world is full of crazy things today we weren’t remotely concerned about happening just a few years ago. I wouldn’t bet on it happening either, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Is this a regional thing? “End equalization” in Alberta means Alberta is no longer a “have” province?
I will rule it out. Being a smaller landlocked country won’t help Alberta oil exports nor induce them to ramp up production.
I have no idea if Alberta would still be a have province or not because this whole thing is too hypothetical. There’s too many questions that are unanswered. How much will Alberta reduce oil extraction? Over what period of time? Etc.
All I’m saying is that it seems clear to me that if Alberta’s economy is reduced, then the equalization payments should be modified accordingly up to and including ending them if necessary. Climate change action is not Alberta’s burden alone. We’ve all benefited from Alberta’s oil industry, we all have to pay a price.