Fossil fuels or the future?
Re Ottawa eyes financial backing for Kinder Morgan, April 12
So much political huffing and puffing about the pros and cons of pipelines, even though the writing has been on the wall for years: fossil fuels are on their way out.
Recent news articles talk about massive wind and solar energy plants being built in Colorado and Saudi Arabia. That is not due to sudden enlightenment about climate change, but because this renewable energy is cheaper to establish and more profitable than digging for oil, gas or coal.
Major financial institutions will no longer lend to fossil-fuel ventures, such as the World Bank and Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. Cars are becoming electric. What more needs to be said? Ulla Colgrass, Toronto
Re Trudeau is in a pipeline box of his own making, Harper, April 10
Tim Harper has it right. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in a cul-de-sac of his own making. The social-permission requirement made sense when campaigning for office. So when Trudeau talked of “consultation,” it made sense.
To alter that promise in order to sell oil makes sense, except that it does not make environmental promises believable. So to invoke constitutional authority and say the federal government rules makes a mockery of “consultation.” Trudeau’s government is caught not in a cul-de-sac, but between a rock and a hard place. Or is it a political dead end?
The Liberals will lose seats in B.C. whatever they decide. They don’t have many real friends in Alberta and the phase-out of oilsands extraction is inevitable. So why not create an environmentally friendly Liberal legacy now and say farewell to Texas pipeline companies? Bruce Rogers, Lindsay, Ont. In 25 years or so, if people in Canada and around the world are facing unstoppable species extinction, extreme weather events and flooding, widespread ocean acidification, mass displacement of people, epidemics of illness and disease, and an expanding civil war, we may have a hard time explaining to our children and grandchildren why we used taxpayer money to “rescue” an American company’s oilsands pipeline, despite wide opposition from Indigenous leaders, scientists and other citizens, and the fact that its construction undermined Canada’s international commitments to reduce greenhouse gases when it was still possible to avert catastrophe.
Perhaps we’ll just have to tell them that it was in the national interest, and leave it at that. Michael Polanyi, Toronto Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notely, what about your children? When they’re suffering from the effects of climate change, what will you say? “I’m sorry but, like John Turner, I had no choice?”
Canadians want investors for a sustainable country, not an oil-stained, disfigured landscape. It’s 2018. Isn’t it time for sustainable political leadership? Barry Healey, Scarborough Let’s pretend that future generations of Canadians truly matter and proclaim the Kinder Morgan pipeline dead. The future seven generations shall thank us. Pretending to care works, seriously.
Let other nations, like U.S. fracking, deplete their natural-gas reserves and, instead, copy Saudi Arabia and restrict oil exports so that something remains for either future exports or use in Canada. Wayne Clutterbuck, East York
Re Ottawa has few options that would guarantee pipeline peace, Hébert, April 11
Alberta and Ottawa ponder financing the Kinder Morgan pipeline project in whole or in part. But instead of pouring money into a declining and polluting industry and polarizing the country further, the federal government should ramp up its investments in transit, building retrofits, renewable energy, clean technology and community programs that ensure full employment in Alberta and across the country. A comprehensive transition program would support both workers and businesses in all regions, as our economy reduces reliance on fossil fuels.
This would require a warlike mobilization, but such a plan would benefit all provinces, Indigenous peoples, the environment and the economy. This initiative would create many more jobs, stimulate new industries, decrease carbon emissions and result in fewer chances of coastal spills, land contamination or deadly explosions.
Neither B.C. nor Alberta need suffer. A country with genuine risk-taking entrepreneurs and visionary political leaders would embrace a positive future and not cling to a fading past. Larry Kazdan, Vancouver As intelligent people, we have the ability to recognize that changing conditions can challenge our previous ideas and we have the capacity to recognize how those changes have impacted our plans.
New news: Bahrain, which has the geographic capacity to build a supertanker port, has just found enough sweet crude to supply the world for the next 30 years. That alone should tell you there is no market for low-grade bitumen, especially when we cannot use supertankers to transport it.
There is also a shortage of refineries that can process bitumen. Asia is not going to build them when a betterquality crude is closer and cheaper. The price for bitumen is heading down and will not recover. Brian Fisher, Nanaimo, B.C.
Re Pipeline politics pit profits against planet, Walkom, April 10
Thomas Walkom explains the Trans Mountain pipeline controversy very clearly. The hysteria around this project proves it is a last gasp of a dying industry. Unfortunately, the last gasp would involve more huge, expensive, damaging infrastructure, causing enormous environmental harm that Canadians would have to pay for, now and into the future. We have many difficult choices ahead as we change to a sustainable economy, but this choice is obvious: no new pipeline. Martha Gould, North Bay, Ont. If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau really thinks ramming the Kinder Morgan pipeline through a province that doesn’t want it is “in the national interest,” then he must have no intention of meeting our international obligations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, because he cannot do both.
And why is it in the national interest to put our Pacific coast at risk so that a Texas-based company can facilitate the shipping of more unrefined bitumen to Asia? Trudeau’s election platform made it clear: “Governments grant permits for resource development … only communities can grant permission.” Will this be yet another broken promise? Norm Beach, Toronto
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