Vancouver Sun columnist Pete McMartin is writing some provocative stuff on climate change. Here’s a recent column based on the work of the Sightline Institute:
This week — and you may have missed it due to Christy Clark’s coming-out party — something called the Sightline Institute released a study about fossil fuels.
Sightline is a regional sustainability think-tank based in Seattle, and it focuses on regional environmental concerns for what we refer to as Cascadia.
The study was entitled Northwest Fossil Fuel Exports and its author was Eric de Place, Sightline’s policy director.
What de Place tried to do was give a numeric value to the amount of global-warming carbon dioxide that would be emitted by all the energy-exporting projects now in the planning stages in B.C., Washington and Oregon.
They include:
• Five new coal terminals.
• Two expansions of existing coal terminals.
• Three new oil pipelines.
• Six new natural gas pipelines.
Eleven of those 16 proposals are in B.C.
It’s breathtaking, that kind of industrial concentration: Cascadia has suddenly become the nexus of mining and energy companies anxious to get their products off to power-hungry Asian markets. It’s this century’s gold rush. The troubled American coal industry wants a West Coast outlet. Alberta wants pipelines to the Pacific. Our premier sees our future in liquefied natural gas.
De Place sees a different future.
“British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington each enjoy a reputation for leadership in clean energy and environmental policy,” he wrote.
“Yet the new fossil fuel infrastructure planned for the region would eclipse the region’s green reputation, transforming the Northwest from an aspiring climate leader into a carbon export hub of global consequence.”
The final figure that de Place came up with?
Collectively, these new projects, he estimated, would produce a total of 761 million tonnes of CO2.
Annually.
That, de Place noted, is 12 times the total amount now emitted by B.C.
De Place recognized that all these projects might not be built. Some are in direct competition with each other. There was the danger, he admitted, of overstating his case.
But he also said, to give the study balance, he purposely understated many factors that contribute to CO2 production — factors like the mining, processing and transportation of those carbon products. He also left out the vast amounts of energy that would be needed to power projects like B.C.’s proposed LNG plants. He counted only the CO2 emitted by the final user of the fuel.
“There were folks who reviewed this who felt I was being far too conservative with the numbers because I only included the carbon inside the fuel and none of the energy used to extract it or process it. But I wanted something clear and defensible, so I went with the more modest number.”
Of special note, de Place cited research from the B.C. environment ministry showing present provincial greenhouse gas production — at least, our domestic production of GHGs, as opposed to that which we export. Many would be surprised to learn that, according to the government, GHG production fell by almost six per cent between 2000 and 2010, the latest year figures were available.
“I think there’s a lot of evidence,” de Place said, “that we can divorce GHG emissions from economic growth. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one or the other.”
But as admirable as B.C.’s domestic record of GHG production was, he said, we and Washington and Oregon would become huge net exporters of GHG production. Since CO2 and the effects of global warming don’t recognize borders, we’d be living an indulgent duality, mortgaging our children’s futures for our short-term gain. Patting ourselves on the back because we blue-box while we ship bitumen off to China.
“Quite frankly,” de Place said, “I think it’s something we should be alarmed about. There are lots of local impacts to this like coal dust and oil spills — and I don’t want to minimize those — but purely from a perspective of taking a responsible view of climate policy in jurisdictions that pride themselves as being leaders, this allocation of capital and public resources seems to me to be violently irresponsible.
“I really do liken it to the old saying of ‘whistling past the graveyard.’ That’s exactly what this feels like. Our leaders have already said clearly that they believe climate change is a threat. And if they sincerely believe that, why advance this level of export infrastructure for carbon?”
Need he ask?
Our election just turned on the issue of jobs, jobs, jobs. And in the last eight years, corporate donors — most notably, a group of mining, gas and oil companies — have inundated the provincial Liberals with $46 million in donations. That buys a lot of attention. And when the Liberals won their landslide Tuesday night, you could hear the high-fives being exchanged in boardrooms in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.
Oh, well. That’s business, or business as we now know it.
By the way, The Sun carried some other news this week that you might have missed in all the election excitement.
Two stories:
One: Tropical and sub-tropical species were increasingly displacing our native species like salmon and oolichan due to our warming ocean waters.
Two: Scientists have determined that the rapidly melting Canadian Arctic is the lead contributor to global sea-rise.
Have a nice day.
