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The conversation
was about pipelines and tankers and the Alberta Oil Sands and such,
and the apparent change of heart of Christie Clark, premier of
British Columbia, on the construction of a pipeline through her
province to carry heavy oil sands bitumen to be loaded onto tankers
on her pristine coastline and shipped to Asia so a great deal of
money could be made, etc., etc.
It was actually a
refreshing change from the endless talk of Rob Ford.
A British Columbian
colleague was not surprised by Clark's apparent about-face on the
subject. She opined that there is no better choice than the pipeline
to transport the oil; a slam dunk compared with rail or road tankers.
I said that there is a real choice: leave the oil in the sands where
it is, fix up the mess and go on to some cleaner enterprise.
That's not the way
the world works, I was informed. Selling oil sands energy to Asia
will happen; we're better off just making sure we choose the least
dangerous way to move it.
It's inevitable.
Like death and taxes, puberty and menopause, earthquakes and
typhoons, there's not a damn thing you can do about it, so get
used to it.
It's true of
course. Many, many happenings are inevitable. They will
happen, like it or not. But wait, shipping oil sands bitumen to Asia
IS NOT ONE OF THEM. There are choices possible here, different routes
to take, debates and decisions to be had that are different from the
status quo.
Much that we
have resigned ourselves to is NOT inevitable.
There's a
seductiveness about resignation, though; if nothing can be done, then nothing
is required of us.
We can rest calmly
in the arms of the creator, who promises a better world when the
final, inevitable chapter has been written. This world, in that case, is not my home anyway.
Truth is, we waste
more energy than we use; we travel far more than is necessary, for
instance. Way too much light, way too much wasted heat, way too many
five-passenger-vehicles-with-one-occupant driving.
“I have a dream,”
Martin Luther King might have said if he was presently a living
Canadian. “I have a dream of the tar sands covered up and the area
restored to be bird, fish and people-friendly again. I have a dream
of many, many men and women employed making solar panels, wind
generators, tidal generators. I dream of roofs made entirely of solar
panels, of wind generators in every town, of cities where only
electric golf carts, bicycles, pedestrians and public transportation
are allowed on the streets.”
I have a dream. A
dream of clean air, clean water, clean land.
Thanks for writing this, George. Yes, there had better be alternatives to fossil fuel energy if it isn't too late. My son who keeps an eye on these things thinks it is already too late. But I dare to hope that we could still turn it around, but we had better do it fast. That will involve all of us cutting down on our footprint, and working together to convince governments that they had better make choices other than the support of companies that make a few rich at the cost of many more poor and the degradation of the planet.
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