Climate strategies putting cart before the horse
More collaboration, consultation needed, SACPA told
Afull house at Country Kitchen Catering heard a reasoned plea on Thursday for more thought on Canada and Alberta’s climate-change strategies. Cosmos Voutsinos said Alberta, Canada and other countries are putting “the cart before the horse” in their carbon-tax plans, limiting their viewpoints to a “highly obsessed” ideology instead of embracing a collaborative “panoramic” way to save the world.
The presentation was part of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs regular speaker series held every Thursday at noon at Country Kitchen Catering in the basement of The Keg.
Voutsinos is a mechanical engineer with a long resumé that involves the design, construction and manufacturing of energy conversion facilities for most energy technologies. He said restructuring the energy infrastructure in a country like Canada needs to be more fastidiously researched than he said it has been so far.
“A single narrow point of view, a single ideology is not enough to provide a complete and a workable mitigating solution to the environmental problem,” he said.
Voutsinos took aim at “The Greens” and their desire to limit C02 emissions from electricity production as shortsighted. He said the Paris conference on climate change has already determined that carbon reductions are not enough and that electricity production is only 17 per cent of Alberta’s total C02 emissions any way.
He challenged the “flat Earthers” and their climatechange denial by saying that even if there is no global warming, the increasing population and rising need for more energy means current methods of production will run out. Then, Voutsinos asked, wouldn’t there still need to be a decarbonization and alternative energy plan?
Voutsinos said the anti-oil approach suffers as oil is required to build alternative energy sources, and less supply means higher prices which makes paying for alternatives not feasible.
He said each philosophy has merits but factors such as economic reality and the totality of production need to be considered. “We emit C02 even talking about it,” he said. Stumbling into a carbon-tax policy is putting the cart in front of the horse, Voutsinos said.
“I suggest this is exactly the right moment to put aside all our obsessions and ideologies and start working together to create the next energy infrastructure,” he said. “And a workable transition period when we do have plenty of low-cost energy and time. The problem is difficult, it cannot be solved by heroic ministers trying to do it all alone; it cannot be done by consulting a couple of advisers or reacting to special-interest groups. “It will take a great effort from several disciplines.” Follow @DylHerald on Twitter.