When MP Nathan Cullen recently came through town, he told us that he found very little support across the region for the idea of a bitumen pipeline. That’s fine, but does that meant we don’t support the industry, at least tacitly?
Speaking for myself, I don’t see much in my life that doesn’t support oil extraction.
For example, I might drive to the mountains in the winter for some backcountry skiing. Few things are more satisfying than the view from the top of a high peak in a glaciated mountain range.
My truck burns a lot of diesel to get to the mountains, as do the thousands of other vehicles that make their way into the backcountry every weekend. The sad irony is that I enjoy the view while destroying it at the same time. Hello global warming. Goodbye glaciers.
How many tens of thousands of litres of diesel are burned every week in the Lakes District to haul logs out of the bush to a sawmill? After that, how much more fuel is consumed to haul lumber to sorting-yards across North America?
No wealth-generating industry around here is exempt.
Last fall we did a story on the ‘Success of the Babine salmon harvest’. Part of that success was tied to new commercial markets being developed with big American distributors like Costco. How much diesel is burned to get Lake Babine smoked salmon to those new markets?
We’ll burn diesel to punch open new mines and we’ll burn diesel to move whatever we take out of the ground. We’ll gladly pocket a piece of the action through pay cheques and other pay-outs.
We need those diesel-fueled jobs. I don’t see anyone protesting their job because the environment suffers.
We’ll burn a mind-boggling amount of fuel this summer going fishing, hiking, biking, and camping. Our recreation and our regional economy depend on burning fuel. Is there any aspect of your daily life in Northern B.C. that doesn’t depend on converting fossil fuel to energy, from the clothes you buy to the groceries that arrive here by the truckload?
We are completely implicated in the oil industry.
Added to that, we don’t want fuel to cost more than it already does. If diesel gets too expensive, then the whole machine comes to a grinding halt. Some have said that the best thing for the environment is a recession, because that slows the fossil fuel burn-rate.
What’s the appetite out there for a recession?
Now, we don’t want ducks dunked in oil or polluted rivers and lakes. We don’t like the visions of post-apocalyptic-looking open-pit mines in Northern Alberta. We certainly don’t like the idea of transporting bitumen by pipeline from it’s source in Alberta to tanker ships on the west coast.
What do we support then? Refineries right at the source in Alberta? Maybe offshore drilling and then a short bump to coastal refineries? Or should we just keep buying back all our refined product from somewhere else?
Our entire way of life is predicated on burning diesel. If that can’t change, then our protests ring hollow.