I been workin' on the railroad . . .

Painting in Oils

Among the numerous curiosities in Canadian political dialogue these days, the “yes/no, maybe so” about pipelines has to be one of the curiositists. An NDP government in Alberta is working hard to swing public, government and corporate opinion toward the economic efficacy of pipelines for bringing Alberta crude to markets. The NDP government of BC knows that it’s beholden to opponents of the Trans-Mountain pipeline for its slim victory in the election there. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper eulogized pipelines but couldn’t get them done. Trudeau’s Liberals have approved the building of pipelines but there are indications that they won’t be any more successful than the Harper government was.

It’s probably most relevant to say that whether or not Keystone or Trans-Mountain or Energy East (or a few other options not much talked about) are ever completed won’t be determined in legislatures but in corporate board rooms. Environmental concerns are generally little more than irritants when profitability is being measured; it’s this measure that counts in the end. Profit-seekers usually find a way wherever there’s a buck to be made.

I’m told the price of oil is low because there’s a glut of it on the market now. That’s Economics 101. What ought to be considered in all this babble about Alberta’s—and by extension Canada’s—prosperity are the trends and trajectories that will determine the future supply and demand situation regarding fossil fuels. Every wind generator, every hydro dam, every new solar panel, every efficiency built into our cars reduces the demand for fossil fuel. Increasing populations, burgeoning middle classes in developing countries pressure the demand upward. Where do these trends cross on a graph? Is it possible that at the same time as an expensive pipeline is completed, the sale of what comes out of it will cease to be profitable?

We’ll probably never pump wheat, or lumber, or people through redundant pipelines. What looks like a surer investment for the future in this country is the modernization of trains and the twinning of rail lines. Well-planned rail systems can transport almost anything cheaply and cleanly—including oil when necessary. Modern rail systems are comparatively economically maintained, can take pressure and expense off road construction and maintenance, reduce the traffic glut and smog in urban centres and are ecologically friendlier than every other transportation mode except, possibly, ocean freighters.

And rail has a romance to it; have you ever heard of a hobbyist setting up a miniature landscape of pipelines? Neither have I.

A broadly educated, reading, studying population ought to realize that the pipeline topic is sucking up far more oxygen than it deserves. The exciting challenges of the future neither revolve around whether or not Exxon or Shell remain profitable, nor even around the jobs their activities create. We’re in an era of massive adjustments and it’s in the informed search for—and incorporation of—new technologies that a prosperous future lies. 

“Jobs, jobs, jobs” is a shibboleth politicians and corporations throw at us all the time. The goal of every corporation, ironically, is to reduce the employment of humans to as close to zero as possible through their replacement by robotics, mechanization, technology. How a living for citizens will be earned or supplied in this kind of a future is a far bigger challenge than what's represented in this tiresome pipeline quarreling.

I used to smoke a pipe. I gave it up. A pipe tends to turn into a sewer unless you tend it like you would your child. (This is irrelevant to the rest of this diatribe, except for pipe, sewer and child.)