Climate strikes and a gas worker’s choices

I have come to see the truth on both sides of issue, says Matthew Dipple.

As an employee with Saskatchewan’s natural gas utility and someone who cares deeply about climate change, I feel conflicted about attending the upcoming global climate strikes happening Sept. 20 and 27.

At this point, you might be tempted to brand me as either a climate-denying sellout or an industry turncoat. Or you could keep reading.

The root of my inner conflict is this: I have come to a place of seeing truth on both sides of the issue.

On the one hand, I see the pressing need for deep systemic changes in the ways we create and use energy. This almost certainly includes dramatically reducing our consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. On the other hand, I also see the need to heat our homes and businesses this winter, and to drive our cars to the grocery store and to that children’s birthday party next week.

Likewise, I feel viscerally the importance and urgency of addressing the damage that our energy industry does to our climate and to the life systems which help regulate our climate. I experience frustration at how haltingly slow and insufficient our actions to address climate change and environmental degradation are, both as a society and in my own life — as if putting lipstick on the corpse will quicken its absent pulse.

But I also see in my work for a gas utility the amazing networks we have created to extract and transport energy, and the dedicated, genuine people who keep these systems running safely and reliably. I see how much time and effort would be required to change these existing systems. With the daily pressures of operating and maintaining the gas network we already have, it is easy for these systemic changes to take a back seat.

And so, my trepidation about the climate strike is not about which side will win: the status quo of the energy grid or the environmentalists. The Greenies or the Oilies. My trepidation is about precisely this paradigm — the narrative that there are two opposing sides. It is about the polarization of an issue that we need to unite around.

Holding this tension is not easy to do, and is much less satisfying than being right. However, I for one am tired of vitriol and froth, and would love to get on with making the world a better place together.

Perhaps the question is less about striking or not striking for the climate, and more about the spirit with which we strike, for there is certainly virtue in standing up for this cause. If we can fix our gaze on the better world we all desire without creating an enemy of the “other side” to rail against and defeat, we can preserve that virtue from the mire of antagonism.

You might still be wondering: will I either skip work and attending the strike, or play my part to keep the gas system running? As it turns out, my work schedule does not include Fridays, so in a way that I could not have planned better to illustrate my point, “either/or” can become “both/and.” Holding this tension of “both/and” is what I’m going for.

Matthew Dipple lives in Regina and works as a professional engineer for Saskenergy. The views expressed here are his own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Saskenergy Incorporated.