They don’t get it – yet.
“We need to be talking about this [the vision of Canada as an ‘energy superpower’] as something in our collective interest and not as though there are some who benefit and others that don’t.” [Globe and Mail, July 16, 2012]
Is it just my antennae that twitch when the head of an organization representing Canada’s most powerful CEOs ventures to comment on ‘our collective interest’? I’m not against designing a strategy to develop Canadian energy resources. In fact, I’m all for it. We are blessed with a vast energy potential –not just from fossil fuels. If we’re smart about it, we might create an economically and environmentally sustainable future for the country. Maybe, just maybe, everyone could benefit.
But what does it mean to be an ‘energy superpower’? So far, it seems a big part of it is exporting as much oil and gas as possible as quickly as possible. But who exactly would benefit from a liquidation sale of our energy resources?
Wind turbines near Cowley in southern Alberta, Canada. © Patricia Buckley / WWF-Canada
Mr. Manley’s remark came to mind again last week when, at the joint review panel hearings, Northern Gateway Pipelines Inc. president John Curruthers expressed hope that people would support the pipeline when they realized it would provide “a significant improved quality of life for all Canadians, including aboriginal Canadians.”
The moment I hear someone promise ‘a chicken in every pot’ I know I’m hearing a familiar pitch (there go my antennae twitching again). This particular project, if built, could irrevocably damage the quality of life of Canadians, many of them aboriginal, who need the Great Bear ecosystem to remain as productive as it is now. Those of us who live in other parts of the country would be poorer too knowing we had failed to protect this global treasure. Finally, if our investment in oil pipelines and unconstrained oil development prevents us from reining in carbon emissions, we know that climate change could deeply reduce our quality of life, and the quality of life of many future generations. A chicken in your pot is no good if you’re boiling along with it.
Mr. Curruthers also said the company hopes to address concerns about oil spills and co-operate with greens to make the pipeline a model of environmental protection.
The problem is, the Northern Gateway project would expose the marine environment and hundreds of kilometers of coastline to the risk of contamination. When you assess the potential behavior of spilled bitumen, a non-floating oil, in the marine environment as well as the logistic, environmental response gap and efficiency constraints to cleaning up a potential spill, you discover that the risk of shipping diluted bitumen through the Great Bear Rainforest is simply unacceptable.
WWF-Canada welcomes the opportunity to work with responsible companies to minimize the impacts of industrial development on projects where we believe co-operation can produce significant gains, both for our environment and our economic well being. Unfortunately, the only way to make this pipeline a model of environmental protection is to shelve it permanently. The Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline and no place for tankers of bitumen.
As for building a sustainable plan for Canada’s energy future, it’s hard to think of an issue more central to our country’s “collective interest.” It’s high time to have that conversation in earnest. And when we do, I hope we will find a way to benefit from our bounty of energy resources and address the most pressing of 21st century problems: how to produce and use energy in an environmentally sustainably way.