Oil will remain key to our future
Even if his logic is sometimes as shaky as his voice, credit rock legend Neil Young for fuelling welcome debate on all things Canadian oil in recent days.
On the plus side, he’s focused attention on First Nations’ treaty rights and the impact the oil sands have on them and the environment.
Though he can comfortably afford to, it’s laudable that Young is donating the take from his current Canadian tour (which included a stop in Regina last night) to the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, which is fighting a legal battle against oil sands expansion on its land. Regardless of the merits of the case, Young is investing more than rhetoric in the issue.
Though his comparison of the oil sands with the atomic bomb devastation of the Japanese city of Hiroshima was thoughtless and offensive, and rightly widely criticized, Young’s criticisms have people talking and debating — and that’s always a good thing in a democracy.
Indeed, his provocative language — “Canada is trading integrity for money” — has prompted the federal government to respond, saying it “recognizes the importance of developing resources responsibly” and pledging to “ensure that Canada’s environmental laws and regulations are rigorous”.
All that said, it’s about here that we depart from Young’s (diesel-powered) tour bus.
Like many in the anti-oil chorus, Young overstates his case and fails to acknowledge the crucial role oil and other fossil fuels play in our lives.
For example, the electric/biodiesel hybrid car he drove to Fort McMurray from California might not have used “any oil at all”, but the electricity he charges it with was almost certainly generated by fossil fuels like coal, natural gas or oil.
And oil is more than simply fuel, with
NEIL YOUNG’S COMMENTS HAVE FOCUSED ATTENTION ON OIL.
petrochemicals providing key components for the plastics and other compounds that are, at present, essential elements of our way of life.
It’s a key part of the Canadian economy, creating billions in royalty and tax revenue governments use to pay for health, education and other programs. And thousands of Canadians are employed in the energy sector.
Yes, we absolutely should be investing in green energy as Young suggests — and governments are.
Thus far, wind and solar power, biomass, hydro generation and other alternatives fall far short of providing the affordable and reliable power we need.
And certainly governments have an important role to play in ensuring resources are extracted in the most-environmentally sensitive manner possible. But the reality is that they must continue to be extracted, both now and for the foreseeable future.
Modern industrial economies are powered by petrochemicals.
The standard of living we enjoy in the developed world — where we’re statistically better fed, healthier and more long-lived than at any other time in the planet’s history — depends in large part on oil-powered transportation and energy infrastructures.
It’s a standard aspired to by increasing numbers of people around the world, and a standard that increasingly is within their reach.
They’re looking to us, in part, to fuel their futures.
We’re looking to them, in part, to fuel our economies.
By all means, let’s debate the future of oil production. But let’s be sure we recognize the stakes, and the costs, both social and economic, of peremptorily turning off the tap.