A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
We humans may arguably be one of the smartest species on the planet. But when it comes to looking after a planet we ultimately need to take care of in order to survive, we seem to fall short on vision.
Lower and lower gas and diesel prices like we haven’t seen in years.
That shortfall is most apparent when it comes to crises like climate change, where it is necessary to think in terms of decades – never mind minutes, hours or even one or a few years – to address what could amount to a catastrophic future, cost wise and health wise, for our children and grandchildren by the last half of this century.
This is all a way of saying let’s build up the resolve to show some vision and not let the recent falling price of gasoline take our eyes off the prize. And the prize, to anyone who has been following what has been going on in the world and does not see the world through the narrow lens of a Stephen Harper, should be obvious.
It is the final move boldly to a future of energy conservation and alternative, greener sources of energy that will turn the tide on carbon emissions and move us to a healthier, more prosperous life for whatever may be left of our lives and for the lives of generations to come.
That means not letting this temporary slide in gas and diesel prices tempt us back to SUVs and other carbon fuel guzzling habits of life that have already brought humanity to the brink of doing terrible damage to our lives and this one and only planet we live on.
By almost all economic reports, a few of the only key reasons that oil prices have slid down to levels we could only dream of a year ago are current energy efforts and the opening of the oil valves by Saudi Arabia – a country that has one of the worst human rights records on earth and one we should not be doing business with.
Lower gas prices are also being aided by “fracking” for gas in underground layers in many states in the U.S. at a cost to human health and the environment that may haunt us for decades to come.
If we simply say; ‘Oh boy, the prices of oil are low again so let’s get back to beltching it,’ the price of gas will soar back up and we will be facing the same threats to health and climate as a result.
So let’s muster up the vision and the top-of-the-ladder intelligence we pride ourselves in having as a human species and look beyoned the Harper/Nicholson/Dykstra government’s filthy tar sands empire to a greener, more industrial diverse future for generations of Canadians to come.
Other countries, including the United States and, believe it or not, China and India, are already moving in that direction.
Corporations like General Motors are now showcasing electric and hybrid cars more efficient and less expeensive to purchase than ever before. And that technology is only bound to get ever more efficient and less expensive if there is a growing consumer demand for it.
So let’s resolve, as Canadians who take pride in being world leaders in such areas as health care and environmental protection, to leave the Harpers behind and march right up to the front of the parade of nations working tooward a carbon-free future.
Let’s do it by saying yes to a healther, more prosperous future for Canada and by finally casting aside Harper and other climate change deniers who would rather have us slithering around in slicks of oil in a 20th century smog.
(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
Unfortunately, the lower price of gas has stalled sales of hybrids, and consumers are turning back to trucks and SUVs. Check out the new investments in auto manufacturing in Ontario: the Ford plant in Oakville, for example. Yes, the Edge’s Eco-Boost engine is a huge improvement when it comes to fuel economy, but it’s no way to wean us off fossil fuels. But of course we don’t argue when the government puts money into well-paying jobs in automobile manufacturing, any more than we seem to care about the billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Oil that the feds tell us help guarantee jobs in the Tar Sands…or they did until the global price of oil started to plummet. Who’s guaranteeing those jobs now? Maybe some of those out of work in Alberta will get hired by Ford in Ontario, to make big cars and trucks to take advantage of the glut of cheap oil. And so it goes…
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Hi Doug:
One small conundrum (among others):
– the natural gas to heat our homes and food this winter was Fracked in Alberta and elsewhere … last year.
Will you mind cutting the beautiful trees on your property to fuel your wood stove? How many months will the wood need to cure & dry? Do you need to cut your trees now to be ready for next winter? How many months will they warm your family?
Please start a discussion:
“How do we get Off gas & oil?”
(and uninsurable, unaffordable, unstorable Nuclear which provides ~60% of Ontario electricity)
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Sure. Let’s by all means have a real discussion, at the government level.
Natural gas has not traditionally come from the fracking process, but from vertical drilling. Hydraulic fracturing using horizontal drilling has been hailed as a solution to the reduction in easy-to-access gas reserves, but in fact merely delays the inevitable—and deludes us into thinking we can go on in the same old way. Well, we can’t.The easy to reach stuff is gone, never to return.
The technologies currently used to recover what’s left of these non-renewable resources pose extreme risks to the environment. There’s research being done on means to transition to more renewable forms of energy. As a northern country, we should have been leading the way in funding research and development into renewable technologies, not subsidizing fossil fuels.
If we don’t start demanding that our governments take this issue seriously, our grandchildren will be chopping down wood to keep warm, even if we ourselves blindly ignore reality as if we had no responsibility whatsoever to the future.
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Thanks Lorne for your comments and for encouraging a continued discussion on this important issue.
Just a few thoughts and/or clarifications at the moment on my commentary.
In no way do I believe that it is possible to go cold turkey on gas and oil. The petroleum industry has long employed rhetorical dishonesty to scare the hell out of the general public and to discredit those who adovcate moving away from an energy world dominated by its carbon products.
In a nutshell the rhetoric goes like this – listen to these “environment extremists” and we will all be back to burning wood in a cave to keep warm or we will be left with a costly nuclear option. This is non-sense.
What we are really talking about here is moving away from a reliance on carbon-based energy (not that the use of oil, gas and coal will ever be completely eliminated in most of our lifetimes) to alternatives like – yes, yes, yes – solar and wind.
As much as all of the Tim Hdak scaremongering over solar and wind has taken hold among a vocal minority in Ontario (with more than a little help from former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty who made a complete mess of energy file in this province) other developed and developing nations around the world (including India and China) are reportedly moving rapidly forward with technologies for making these sources of energy more affordable and efficient.
A few months ago, I watched a report on one of the Canadian news channels about a company in British Columbia that has employed a natural mineral in batteries that can store energy generated from wind and solar for signigicantly longer periods of time – a breakthrough that will help address the concern over what happens with these energy sources during periods when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t out.
Throughout human history, there have been individuals like Hudak, Harper and others (the real naysayers and fearmongers among us) who make it their mission to defend entrenched interests by trying to scare people out of advancing to technoligies new and innovative. Fearmongering about the advent of radio, airflight and motion picture or movies are among a number of things that come to mind.
We are now living in and dealing with the challenges of 21st century realities. One of those realities, according to more than 90 per cent of the scientist who specialize in environment and climate research, is a growing number of severe weather episodes that is costing economies around the wrld coountless billions of dollars annually.
As I commented in my post above, let’s have the courage to use the intelligence and vision we potentially have as humans to meet this serious challenge for present and future generations.
Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
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