Check out this interview from Aug. 15 on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s “Discussion”, with host Charles Boylan. Guest Damien Gillis and Boylan cover a wide range of topics relating to energy and the future of the BC and Canadian economy. The pair discuss the myriad alternatives popping up of late to the embattled Enbridge pipeline, including Kinder Morgan’s planned twinning of its Trans Mountain Pipeline to Vancouver, and shipping bitumen by rail. They also cover natural gas development in northern BC – including controversial hydraulic fracturing and the building of a new pipeline to carry this gas to Kitimat and covert it to Liquified Natural Gas to sell in Asian markets – plus an alternative economic vision for BC that doesn’t depend on becoming a major fossil fuel corridor to the world. (Aug. 15 – 1 hr)
A good discussion of the issues of development – particularly in connection with the Enbridge line. Many sound points raised. Will there be a condensed version of the interview made available?
I would offer three comments – a layer cake of concerns: 1)) The ecological risks of piping the bitumen to the coast;
2)) The short-sighteness of shipping the refining jobs offsgore;
3)) The longer term risks to our climate future as we, or anyone else, burns oil/gas/coal.
A context: there are about 7,000,000,000 people on the planet, by 2075 about 9,000,000,000 or more. Where on earth are the processes of ‘development’ and ‘growth’, those madly sought after things taking us? What is the end-point? Do we simply follow blindly in the game until the earth won’t sustain us? Do our politicians ever think about such long-term things?
Think about the connections.