A provocative comment in response to “Tar Sandys“, from Perry Pugh:
I appreciate your blog, but feel this is a tad irresponsible considering our country’s manufacturing core is crutched by Outdated Coal powered plants that produce roughly double the greenhouse emissions responsible for climate change.
Where the Oilsands is an easy target for everyone in “Beautiful British Columbia”, the economic impact that it brings our country needs to be weighed before you can cross your arms and point to it as 100% wrong. Believe it or not, major technological strides are being made to produce this resource cleaner and reclaim the affected lands, which is more than can be said for Coal.
I understand my opine isn’t popular but I’ve seen the prosperity that this industry has brought large parts of our country first hand and felt something should be said. I appreciate much of your writing and feel this is not up to the par you have set.
One of my posts that actually involved no writing at all got one of the more critical comments about my writing. Not sure how to take that. Maybe I should stick to pictures.
In any event, this is perhaps a small indicator that Sandy has changed something in the public debate. Perry, I can understand, is more comfortable debating the economics of the oil sands and the trade-offs with more polluting alternatives. But that’s not the point of the photo essay.
This is not just about our prosperity; there is a more profound moral issue involved, especially for Canadians. Since we have the oil sands and we have the Arctic, do we exploit one to make ourselves rich if we must sacrifice the other and pass on the consequences – potentially horrific – to others and the next generation?
And there is a matter of honesty: will we leave the coal in the ground, or the oil, if we come up with technological alternatives that are nonetheless more expensive to get or to use? Or has industry, as Bill McKibben argues, already priced in the value of fossil-fuel reserves and intends to exploit them regardless? Looking at Alberta and Ottawa politics, it is hard to believe that there would be any serious constraint.
I expect there are other points of view out there. Weigh in.
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While we’re at it, a Carbon Talks plug:
A pair of Carbon Talks coming up: Next Tuesday, November 6 we’ll be hosting Minister of Environment Terry Lake, MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson speaking on “Provincial Climate Change Policy – Making Progress on Climate Action Since 2008”.
Tuesday, November 6 / 9:30 – 10:30 am / SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1700.
More details here. / Register in advance here.
Then in a few week’s time, on November 20, join us for “Liquefied Natural Gas in BC: Risk or Reward?” with David Austin and Marc Lee.
Tuesday, November 20 /12:30 – 1:30 pm / SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1600.
There’s not much to respond to in Perry’s comment. It’s mostly a strawman argument.
I am interested to know, however, why Perry has the impression that Canada’s manufacturing core is “crutched” by coal power plants. There are zero coal power plants in Quebec [1] (though 0.81% of the electricity it consumed in 2010 was generated by coal outside the province [2]) and in 2011, coal accounted for 2.7% of electricity generated in Ontario [3] (I couldn’t find stats on how much of the electricity imported to Ontario was generated from coal, but since Ontario imports about 2% of the energy it consumes [4] and much of that comes from coal-free Quebec, the number is quite low.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Quebec
[2] http://www.centreforenergy.com/Documents/AboutEnergy/ByTheNumbers/QUE-bythenumbers.pdf
[3] http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp
[4] http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_demand.asp and http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp
I for one would like to thank you for never shying away from a tough but correct position. The tar sands are part of the problem, just as coal-dependent power is too, and basing our entire economy around these fossil fuels and their extraction is going to ruin us in the long-run, and has already contributed to the gutting of other industries through a bad case of dutch disease. Short-term economic gain is hardly compensation for long-term economic ruin.
I know it scares a lot of people to link climate change to things like hurricane Sandy, because it becomes something you can’t deny anymore. The effects aren’t just theoretical future problems, they are real and killing people and destroying homes and they’re right here right now. That’s scary for people who have invested a lot in denying climate change, and it’s exactly why we have to keep pressing the issue. Good work.