In this case, the region isn’t just Metro Vancouver; it’s the Pacific Northwest and B.C.
Huge fossil fuel deposits in the interior of North America:
- Powder River Basin coal
- Bakken shale oil
- Alberta tar sands
- Remote natural gas fields.
Big energy companies plan to unearth these vast reserves of carbon-intense fuels and put them up for sale in Asia. If they are successful, these energy firms will unleash the carbon equivalent of roughly five Keystone XL Pipelines.
But to get their products to market, energy companies first have to build new terminals and pipelines to move all that fuel.
In short, they need our permission.
By geographic accident that the Northwest, perhaps the greenest corner of North America, will play an outsize role in determining the planet’s climate future. Will we double-down on coal and oil use, thereby jeopardizing our chance at a stable climate? Or will we act as a thin green line, insisting that we must do better.
In medieval times various faith based groups fought each other in Europe under the name of “for God”, today they do it still in the Middle East and now here at home under the new faith of “climate change is man made” or “global warming”. Is it no wonder that Asian economies are growing at a faster pace while we block our progress with new faith based actions …
Faith, science, what’s the difference right? All that sciency stuff is just too complicated, I guess, so let’s just pretend it’s like the Bible and wish it all goes away.
Not quite, at least much of the bible is based on historical facts. I do doubt there is actually global warming. Of course pumping crap in the air is never a good idea. I prefer the term pollution reduction.
Bot of course, without oil or gas in the transportation system the global food production and delivery system would collapse and humans by he millions would starve due to the enormous energy required to grow food, then harvest it, then transport it by truck, rail or boat, then refrigerate it .. to feed 8B+ humans a lot of energy is required. A lot. Cost effective energy sources of scale are not yet available to replace oil or gas. e-trucks or e-boast are not yet available at reasonable prices. There is no alternative today to oil and gas. These so called environmentalists, or on occasion “eco terrorists” are just another tax on the energy bill, showing up in your price of buying an apple.
Oh sure, it’s expensive to change. And yet the consequences of not acting now and allowing climate change to continue and become much worse are far more serious, damaging and expensive than acting immediately to halt human’s negative impact on our climate.
But judging by your profile picture, maybe that’s not too important to you. After all, acting now requires sacrifices by you. Not acting means you’ll probably be dead and gone by the time anyone in the first world really suffers from climate change. So why not push off the consequences onto my generation and continue with our privileged lifestyle for a few more decades. After all, you won’t suffer. But I will.
“Reasonable prices” I guess depends on who you ask, in that case. Have any children, Thomas? Maybe ask them.