Since we're using strong language, let's call the Conservative government's eagerness to ship tarsands oil to China through the Northern Gateway Pipeline what it is: humiliating, irresponsible and short-sighted.
That may sound "radical," perhaps; unpatriotic to some. But our government, in our name, is ready to accelerate climate change, imperil pristine British Columbia wilderness, risk a catastrophic oil spill on the Pacific coast - and for what? The almighty dollar. Specifically, for highly uncertain, and certainly exaggerated, economic gains.
Even taken at face value, the advertised spinoffs from this project are modest compared to the enormous profits (mostly) international oil companies will recoup. Enbridge, the Canadian company proposing the 1,117-kilometre pipeline from Edmonton to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, says some 3,000 jobs will be created during the peak construction period.
But these are jobs of short duration; a pipeline, by its nature, is mostly inert once built. The company promises 62,000 person hours overall, and 1,150 long-term jobs, including 104 for those operating the pipeline and another 113 at the port at Kitimat, where giant oil tankers will load. Critics claim these numbers are inflated. Even if they aren't, they amount to crumbs next to the overall investment and potential environmental costs.
Governments and First Nations bands will notionally benefit, too; the company's website says B.C. will collect $1.2 billion in tax revenues - over 30 years, however, which doesn't sound as impressive. Alberta gets half a billion over the same period. And the company claims $270 billion will be added to Canada's GDP overall.
These figures are speculative, given the shifting price of oil and changeable tax and royalty rates, but megaprojects like this do generate jobs across the country - including, in this case, in struggling Ontario. But against this we must calculate the costs, public and private, of cleaning up devastating oil spills, repairing contaminated watersheds, and policing tanker traffic through Kitimat's treacherous shoals.
There will be leaks. The Citizen's Glen McGregor uncovered U.S. figures that list 150 leaks from Enbridge pipelines over the years. The most publicized occurred in 2010, when 20,000 barrels of oil escaped, some into Michigan's waterways. There was a small gas leak from an Enbridge pipeline near Louisiana this week.
The Northern Gateway route crosses mountainous territory in central B.C., some of it prone to landslides, and some 600 streams alive with salmon and other fish. No matter how carefully crossings are built, accidents are inevitable - and potentially ruinous to an $800-million commercial fishery, to tourism, and the fresh water First Nations depend on.
As for the giant oil tankers that will ply the shallow, stormy and often fogbound channels and fiords around Kitimat, loaded with oil bound for Asia, that is another disaster in the making. And it only takes one, as the 1989 Exxon Valdez, and the ruinous spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 prove. Claims that tankers safely manoeuvre the Great Lakes daily are irrelevant; these are different, more difficult, waters.
That may sound "radical," perhaps; unpatriotic to some. But our government, in our name, is ready to accelerate climate change, imperil pristine British Columbia wilderness, risk a catastrophic oil spill on the Pacific coast - and for what? The almighty dollar. Specifically, for highly uncertain, and certainly exaggerated, economic gains.
Even taken at face value, the advertised spinoffs from this project are modest compared to the enormous profits (mostly) international oil companies will recoup. Enbridge, the Canadian company proposing the 1,117-kilometre pipeline from Edmonton to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, says some 3,000 jobs will be created during the peak construction period.
But these are jobs of short duration; a pipeline, by its nature, is mostly inert once built. The company promises 62,000 person hours overall, and 1,150 long-term jobs, including 104 for those operating the pipeline and another 113 at the port at Kitimat, where giant oil tankers will load. Critics claim these numbers are inflated. Even if they aren't, they amount to crumbs next to the overall investment and potential environmental costs.
Governments and First Nations bands will notionally benefit, too; the company's website says B.C. will collect $1.2 billion in tax revenues - over 30 years, however, which doesn't sound as impressive. Alberta gets half a billion over the same period. And the company claims $270 billion will be added to Canada's GDP overall.
These figures are speculative, given the shifting price of oil and changeable tax and royalty rates, but megaprojects like this do generate jobs across the country - including, in this case, in struggling Ontario. But against this we must calculate the costs, public and private, of cleaning up devastating oil spills, repairing contaminated watersheds, and policing tanker traffic through Kitimat's treacherous shoals.
There will be leaks. The Citizen's Glen McGregor uncovered U.S. figures that list 150 leaks from Enbridge pipelines over the years. The most publicized occurred in 2010, when 20,000 barrels of oil escaped, some into Michigan's waterways. There was a small gas leak from an Enbridge pipeline near Louisiana this week.
The Northern Gateway route crosses mountainous territory in central B.C., some of it prone to landslides, and some 600 streams alive with salmon and other fish. No matter how carefully crossings are built, accidents are inevitable - and potentially ruinous to an $800-million commercial fishery, to tourism, and the fresh water First Nations depend on.
As for the giant oil tankers that will ply the shallow, stormy and often fogbound channels and fiords around Kitimat, loaded with oil bound for Asia, that is another disaster in the making. And it only takes one, as the 1989 Exxon Valdez, and the ruinous spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 prove. Claims that tankers safely manoeuvre the Great Lakes daily are irrelevant; these are different, more difficult, waters.
Every megaproject has its environmental costs, but this one is particularly pernicious because it will triple production from Alberta's oilsands, pumping ever more greenhouse gas into the world's atmosphere. And is this still "ethical" oil, when the primary customer is China?
Rather than answering these valid concerns, the Conservative government has chosen to vilify pipeline critics - environmentalists and unnamed "others" who are portrayed, comically, as agents of foreign interests.
It is true, as government claims, that many green activists want to end our dependence on fossil fuels; it is not true that most favour an immediate shutdown of the tarsands.
For years, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and others, have been urging governments to regulate emissions; to force oil companies to find technological fixes; to direct some oil profits to green alternatives; to prepare for the future economy, not retreat to our traditional role as hewers of wood, drawers of water, exporters of jobs, despoilers of nature.
As David Suzuki argues, this battle is not the environment versus the economy, jobs versus a few remote salmon runs. Fundamentally, it is about safeguarding the air and water we depend on for life.
Nor will rejecting the pipeline - much less rerouting it to Prince Rupert's more accessible port, as some have suggested - destroy the economy. There is still oil in the ground, still pipeline capacity; there is still a hungry market to the south. Many environmentalists want production slowed, not stopped - or accelerated - to allow time to implement cleaner alternatives.
They risk being overpowered by Big Money (foreign and domestic) and Harper's obdurate refusal to compromise. Cabinet can, and will, overrule the National Energy Board, which is hearing the case, in the unlikely event that the NEB objects.
Pipeline opponents will win only if Canadians, en masse, rally to defend their beautiful, blessed country - rather than stepping politely aside while it is plundered again for short-term gain.
Rather than answering these valid concerns, the Conservative government has chosen to vilify pipeline critics - environmentalists and unnamed "others" who are portrayed, comically, as agents of foreign interests.
It is true, as government claims, that many green activists want to end our dependence on fossil fuels; it is not true that most favour an immediate shutdown of the tarsands.
For years, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and others, have been urging governments to regulate emissions; to force oil companies to find technological fixes; to direct some oil profits to green alternatives; to prepare for the future economy, not retreat to our traditional role as hewers of wood, drawers of water, exporters of jobs, despoilers of nature.
As David Suzuki argues, this battle is not the environment versus the economy, jobs versus a few remote salmon runs. Fundamentally, it is about safeguarding the air and water we depend on for life.
Nor will rejecting the pipeline - much less rerouting it to Prince Rupert's more accessible port, as some have suggested - destroy the economy. There is still oil in the ground, still pipeline capacity; there is still a hungry market to the south. Many environmentalists want production slowed, not stopped - or accelerated - to allow time to implement cleaner alternatives.
They risk being overpowered by Big Money (foreign and domestic) and Harper's obdurate refusal to compromise. Cabinet can, and will, overrule the National Energy Board, which is hearing the case, in the unlikely event that the NEB objects.
Pipeline opponents will win only if Canadians, en masse, rally to defend their beautiful, blessed country - rather than stepping politely aside while it is plundered again for short-term gain.
Original Article
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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