Here are three things to remember about Premier Clark and the Enbridge pipeline:
1. She did not reject the pipeline – she simply said that Enbridge had not met BC’s conditions.
2. She has, simply said “we want money”, which reminds me of the old chestnut where a man invites a lady to bed offering her $25,000 dollars. With much hemming and hawing she accepts. He then offers her $25 dollars instead and she shrieks, “Do you think I’m a common whore”. He replies “we’ve already established that madam…now we’re dickering about the price”. That’s what the premier has done.
3. She hasn’t asked the main question – nor has anyone else including the media. That is, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary you can clean up a leak, assuming you can, how do you expect to get crews and heavy machinery into the Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain Trench, Coast Range or Great Bear Rainforest?
For all the crap we’re going to hear in the next year or so, these questions will not be dealt with, simply because they can’t be.
The Enbridge spill into the Kalamazoo River nearly 3 years ago demonstrates that even when access is easy, these spills are essentially forever, yet we will be smothered by company claims of “world class cleanup” processes, new-style pipelines and so on. This is the oldest gimmick of all – if you cannot answer the question, change the question to one you can.
We who raise these issues will be said to be against all development, etc., and even the NDP will start its slow but steady reversal of attitude.
Let me predict another couple of things for you.
Site “C” will go ahead, the price will move to $10 billion and the energy will be sold at much reduced rates to gas “frackers” so they can use publicly supplied energy to extract and send shale gas to Prince Rupert and Kitimat to be converted (more energy used again) to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and shipped to foreign markets (using yet more energy) to enrich large corporations at our expense.
There will be no great energy bonanza to the government from this and Santa Claus must be your faithful pen pal to believe that there will be a“Prosperity Fund” with over $100 Billion in it to make us debt-free and actually rolling in dough.
The biggest problem facing Premier Clark is how to get rid of BC Hydro to the private sector, mostly because of the disastrous private river power policy of the Campbell/Clark government. This issue, to their eternal shame, wasn’t even mentioned by the NDP in the last election. In fact, even those who wouldn’t vote NDP under any circumstances should be appalled at the Official Opposition’s dereliction in its duty to oppose this program, because most of them want BC Hydro saved – if it can be.
We’re in for four years of a government in a deep hole because of their terrible misgovernment, faced by an opposition that disgraced themselves and simply won’t be taken seriously no matter whom they select as leader.
The only thing we can hope for is an incensed public which is prepared to turn to massive civil disobedience.
Thursday, 13 June 2013 08:59 posted by Lloyd Vivola
Hello, Juan:
Been away. But thanks again for the input.
At risk of belaboring the point in question, three-legged stool or otherwise, sustainability is a relative animal, and as I suggested previously, I see choosing the lesser of evils in this case as resignation to an economic model that is stuck in the inevitable, pseudo-evolutionary trajectory of a neo-colonial, industrial mindset with regard to standards of good health and good wealth. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if you will. I prefer good science to scientism, and I would hope that human beings have the power of imagination and application to realize living in the world in new ways. Nor would I exclude all industry or technology from a future that would be better construed as something beyond “in our lifetime.” Call folk like me dreamers, but as a Zen teacher recently suggested: we are not dreamers, but those who have awakened from a dream that was turning into a nightmare. So again, as I also stated previously, I imagine that you and I disagree on these points. Respectfully.
Takes all kinds. Sincere best wishes.
Monday, 10 June 2013 16:45 posted by Juan Casador
Hi Lloyd
Unfortunately, petroleum use is not going away in our lifetime. Like many choices, including sources of electric power, it’s about finding the lesser evil, and remembering that sustainability is a 3 legged stool, and includes the economy. Let us also remember that while oilsands are from perfect, they are improving with tremendous reduction in energy intensity in the last decade; ditto water use. Take a look at the stats on the CAPPP website http://appstore.capp.ca/oilsands – the amount of boreal forest infringed upon is small. Notice how oilsands enemies always show pictures of tailings ponds but forget to mention that about 70% of resources are not for mining, but in-situ with no tailings ponds. Another ENGO says the tailings ponds are so huge you can see them from space – true – you can also see my wife’s Caravan on Google! Lot of half truths, and some outright lies. It is not a simple issue.
Monday, 10 June 2013 14:39 posted by Lloyd Vivola
Hello, Juan:
Thanks for crunching those numbers, not least of all on GHG emissions. And yes, my figures were strictly citing production vs. product gained ratios. They can easily be confirmed at a number of websites, technical and journalistic, with variations that do not change the point I was making. Of course, regarding tar sands, we could also address water use; toxic waste; coke by-product sitting in dumps, destruction of boreal forests and peat bogs, not to mention the wildlife they support; also, the impact of tars sands on the health, culture and environs of indigenous peoples. And are we not piping methane to the tar sands to facilitate the transport of dilbit? Cannot recall. Not an expert. Still, I suppose I should clarify that my reference to the fossil-fuel addiction was not meant to promote conventional petroleum as a better form of heroin, metaphorically speaking. Energy independence in Canada and the US cannot be achieved by them becoming industrial park, petro-production export states, which is what the plan seems to be north and south of the border.
The planet and societal health and stability will not stand for it. But I imagine we disagree on that point.
Monday, 10 June 2013 10:35 posted by Juan Casador
Hi Lloyd
Not sure were you get your numbers (production side only?), but you can go into a number of studies and websites (e.g. CAPP, but it’s a producers’ organization) and you will find that the oilsands are 5-12% higher in GHG’s compared to AVERAGE US crude wells to wheels. Guess what, if we don’t send bitumen to the USA, they won’t replace it with average crude but with stuff similar to ours and world GHGs do not drop. Also depends if the bitumen is mined or in-situ. Try the following source – “When accounting for these “wide boundary” results the new report found that fuels produced solely from oil sands result in emissions 5 percent to 23 percent higher than the average crude processed in the U.S. with the average for oil sands products refined in the United States being 12 percent higher than the average barrel.
The complete report is available for download at the dialogue’s homepage, http://www.ihs.com/oilsandsdialogue”
BTW, some crudes, such as California heavy, are worse than our bitumen.
Sunday, 09 June 2013 21:45 posted by J Mutch
Rafe,
Appreciate the article, but please, ditch the ‘whore’ analogy.
Sunday, 09 June 2013 04:43 posted by Lloyd Vivola
To Dave Ferguson:
A comment well worth posting twice. Well done,
To Juan Casador and your comment:
“There might be slight differences in GHG emissions due to the crude’s quality or to the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of local production and transportation practices, but these differences are generally small on a wells-to-wheels basis.”
The small differences you cite, according to more generous estimates, amount to: 6 units of energy received for each unit invested in tar sands dilbit; and on average, 25 units of energy received for each unit invested in conventional petroleum extraction. Face it: the Alberta tar sands are a cancerous tumor on the face of the earth and the poster-child of our fossil fuel addiction. Now the US and Canada want to facilitate the spread of disease through a massive pipeline economy.
To Rafe: An important political analysis that should be read by concerned folk everywhere, especially since too many reporters have framed the Clark decision as a sea-change in pipeline policy. Meanwhile, Obama continues to deliberate as protests along the Keystone route gain momentum. Ah, if someone would only “leak” word from his “private” summit with Xi Jinping.
Saturday, 08 June 2013 10:06 posted by juan casador
Re the gorilla: This thesis assumes that if Canadians refuse to sell crude oil to (for example) China, the Chinese will not buy the commodity elsewhere. This is a ridiculous assumption; they will buy the commodity from another supplier, and the world greenhouse gas emissions will stay approximately the same.
There might be slight differences in GHG emissions due to the crude’s quality or to the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of local production and transportation practices, but these differences are generally small on a wells-to-wheels basis.
Friday, 07 June 2013 14:15 posted by Dave Ferguson
The forty stone gorilla that no one seem to be talking about is climate change and its consequences. At 400 ppm on a rocket to 450 ppm within 15 years at which point the global temperature cannot be held below 2 degrees rise which will kick in positive feedbacks—arctic ice melting, release of methane from the tundra and massive release of CO2 from the warming oceans. This will result in a further warming of six degrees, unstoppable even with drastic geo-engineering actions, probably a ‘cure’ worse than the disease. The damage from dilbit spills, tanker crack-ups, methane fracking, acid drainage from coal mining, as horrific as it could be, pales in significance to the monkey-wrenching of the atmosphere the fossil fuel terrorists are foisting upon us.
Thursday, 06 June 2013 19:36 posted by Juan Casador
Rafe Your claim they can’t get onto the land to fix a pipeline leak – how do you think they got in there to build it?????????????? Cats, trenchers, pipe-laying booms, and so on. Much easier to get in to fix/clean up a leak than build the line.
Spills are not “essentially forever” but may be long degrading in Arctic climates; not in warm water as Saddam Hussein proved. A million barrels a year seeps from natural seeps into North American waters (Google Coal Point seep) – also in Haida Gwai – why does almost nobody know – because crude is a natural product and the bugs dispose of it over time.
Liberal government policy on IPPs? You know better. It was started by the Socreds (YOU WERE THERE), continued by the NDP (Minister Anne Edwards), and then later adopted by the BC Libs.
You have poor control of your “facts”. Contrary to what you say (and I have no use for the NDP), the NDP said they would put a moratorium on IPPs, as I recall. You claim they did not even mention it in the campaign.
I read your stuff with a tremendous grain of salt. Your facts are so often off the bag, even in areas where you do- or should – know better.
Thursday, 06 June 2013 16:20 posted by Diane Babcock
Thank goodness I took a Direct Action Civil Disobedience workshop on Saturday through the CoC, ’cause I’m sure gonna need it now.
Thursday, 06 June 2013 13:36 posted by Beverly Saunders
Rafe, you are so right on this issue! Clark’s no was really a yes if the price is right. Everyone seems to be jumping on the “BC says no to Enbridge” bandwagon without really understanding what really happened. All to get elected I think. Keep up your straight talk!