Honestly, I have a hard time accepting the term "green oil". Seems like
green washing to me. You make some really good points about using Alberta's resources today to finance renewables in the future, however there is no political will to ensure this happens expediently. Just as the corporate "abuses" on other continents (as well as our own) are not incentive for the petroleum industry to recognize the need to change their ways in any timely manner. The turn around by the ERCB on the recent Court of Appeals ruling was shocking on the one hand and not a complete surprise on the other. This just reinforces my belief that this government is not ready to seriously address the concerns of the people and put them or the environment before profit for the corporations. The environment is a client as well and needs to be treated as such. I see no movement by our government or the petroleum industry in that direction.
We can meet Mr. Gore’s challenge
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| Satya discusses climate change with Al Gore |
If anything, the former U.S. vice president and Nobel laureate underlines the case for responsible and sustainable development of the oil sands: the obligation of stewardship and ownership that falls to Albertans and Canadians.
Mind you, Gore obviously is using five-year old data and more than a bit of topspin when he says gasoline from the oil sands gives an ultra-clean Toyota Prius the same emissions profile as a gas-guzzling Hummer. The latest and most comprehensive review of scientific evidence shows the oil sands are about 10 per cent more emissions-intensive than conventional oil in the “well to wheels” analysis of the emissions profile. http://eipa.alberta.ca/home/lifecycle.aspx
Yet his key point is right: irresponsible development of the oil sands will indeed imperil the planet. And not just our species, but biodiversity itself. It’s true that if the oil sands were entirely shut down, there would be hardly any measurable impact on global carbon emissions. But the question is more than the symbolism of the oil sands: the real issue is the global value they represent, if we can reach for the goal of “green oil.”
This is a resource valued at $15 trillion at today’s prices, in a world that remains addicted to fossil fuels. Our challenge of stewardship is to develop that resource sustainably and responsibly: to develop the oil sands with no net carbon emissions in the production stage, and to reduce our carbon footprint even as production expands.
When I discussed climate change with Gore at a Canada2020 conference in Mont Tremblant in the summer of 2006, http://www.canada2020.ca/, he acknowledged that his country’s addiction to fossil fuels was the most significant climactic threat to the planet. Even if oil sands production can become green, the U.S. appetite for fossil fuels must be curbed before we can see genuine progress towards binding international standards on greenhouse gas reductions.
More than 20 years after Margaret Thatcher sounded the alarm about global warming at her prescient and largely-ignored speech at the United Nations, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107817, the world is about to gather at Copenhagen Dec. 7 to 18 in the elusive search for an enforceable accord on carbon emissions.
The Copenhagen summit seems destined to be one of many halting steps. Today, it appears that the United States will finally announce relatively deep and swift emission cuts, ramping up to 42 per cent (below 2005 levels) by 2030. This announcement from President Barack Obama will undoubtedly run into enormous opposition and interference before it can become law in the U.S. and it will be a challenge to enact it. It would be a very good thing indeed if Mr. Gore would lend his intellect, his commitment and his considerable persuasive powers to inducing his own country to meet these targets.
A key component of that, of course, will be Alberta’s potential role as a supplier of cleaner and greener hydrocarbon fuel to the United States. But we Albertans should not focus only on supplying the U.S. market. The news U.S. carbon standard, even in being announced, adds a new urgency to our own efforts to accelerate sustainable development: and to use the value of the oil sands to pay for and build a green future.
Instead of seeing fossil fuels and alternative/emerging energies as rival streams, Green Oil sees them as complementary. The greening of fossil fuel production and the development of renewable and alternative energy should occur simultaneously, and even in cooperation and harmony. Already, it is becoming clear that fossil fuel energy companies have the capital and the resources necessary to pursue alternatives: whether this is “green washing” or a serious commitment remains to be seen, yet there is little doubt about the capacity. Alberta, however, as owner of the oil sands, can put in place both the regulatory framework and the public resources necessary to ensuring that greener oil sands production and non-fossil-fuel energy sources can evolve as expeditiously as possible.
From my perspective, the option of abandoning the oil sands, leaving them shut in, would be an act of profound negligence. There are some strong Albertan and Canadian voices calling for the easy appeasement of walking away from “dirty oil.” Such abdication would be comprehensively wrong. We can use the enormous wealth the oil sands can confer to build the common good. We can use it to pay for the transition to alternative energy, built on a platform of much greener hydrocarbon production. It is not at all paradoxical to think that developing this high-carbon-emission resource in a more sustainable way will, in fact, accelerate the development of the low carbon economy: by giving us the means to pay for it, by investing in both the research and development and the implementation of this greener future. By our own history we have demonstrated that through science and technology, we can solve problems or create opportunities for wealth.
I have every reason to believe that Mr. Gore would support this perspective. He should come to Alberta, so we can have a free and frank discussion about bringing his country’s investment and ingenuity to bear on helping to make the oil sands green.
We should encourage Premier Ed Stelmach to issue that invitation: and encourage Mr. Gore to forego his customary quarter-million-dollar speaking fee and an ecological message most often delivered at $500-a-plate dinners for oligarchs. We need a dialogue in our living rooms and kitchen tables and community halls, and he can certainly make a valuable contribution.
- Satya Das
- Comments
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|2009-11-25 18:43:40 Alan Clark - Keeping a straight face.Satya, I have been impressed with your integrity as a writer since your days at the Edm. Journal. Although you and I are polls apart philosophically, I have always appreciated your thoughtful, unbiased approach to issues. I agree that Albertans have been bestowed a gift by the Creator and with it we could lead the world to a better future. Albertans could cure diabetes. We could cure cancers. We could pioneer new technologies and techniques for producing clean air and water if we decided to put our natural talents and considerable resources to those ends. I am not aware that there is a single person on the planet who believes that diabetes and cancer are myths or frauds perpetrated by self-serving scientists and politicians. Why would anyone choose to involve themselves in a Climate Change debate that is rapidly taking on the characteristics of a Three Stooges movie let alone propose significant investment in "countering" adverse effects that currently can only be documented...
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|2009-12-07 19:54:47 Kim - Greening energy and cancerGreener energy is not only good for the environment (there's no debate: global warming is real, just ask the inhabitants of low-lying atolls in Micronesia) but it is also good for humans (and other animals). In fact, making the oil sands more "green" would probably reduce cancer rates of those who live downstream from the tailings ponds of Syncrude. Don't fool yourself thinking that clean energy is meant to save the Earth. The Earth will be just fine; we need to do it to save the human race.
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|2009-12-11 16:18:22 Alan ClarkYes Kim, Global Warming is real. That much is certain because if not then I'm virtually certain we would still be covered in ice (oh wait, we are covered in ice). Global warming has been occurring since the end of the Little Ice Age at a rate of 0.5°C per millennium. And sea levels too are rising again at a rate of about 5mm a year. Big deal. The human race is in no peril from fossil fuels. In fact, the more plentiful and cheap the supply, the more healthy and prosperous man-kind is. That too is as settled as the data on "Global Warming".
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