To Pipeline or Not to Pipeline

Coincident with the plunge in the price of crude oil (and commodities in general), has been an increasingly virulent debate over pipelines.

Supporters claim that pipelines are safer than rail for transporting crude oil.  Perhaps so, but is that the full extent of the argument?

Even if pipelines are better than rail, they aren't perfect, and more and more people are demanding something much closer to perfect when toxic substances are being shipped past their doors, under their soil or across their waterways.

Pipeline proponents wave the national unity flag and claim that Energy East would be able to supply all of Eastern Canada's energy needs so we wouldn't need to keep supporting that nasty Saudi regime, even though we seem quite happy selling them weapons.  The problem is.... Energy East would be for export, not domestic consumption.  And that's assuming, at the present price of crude, that it would make ANY economic sense to sell a product well below it's cost of production.

The elephant in the room is still climate change.  But we're still having this old argument being put forward that there isn't a scientific consensus.  It's the same old song and dance, even though the Science IS in.  So why are some people content to keep doing everything the way we've always done things?  Since climate change IS the world most pressing problem, why is anyone still listening to this same old nonsense?

What about a carbon tax?  What about alternative sources of energy?  What about increased efficiencies? What about a different discussion?

Speaking of BC's Carbon Tax.  Those on the side of doing nothing about climate change assert that it hasn't worked.  Ignore for a moment the fact that the tax hasn't been increased for years and needs to be much higher, consider this: Studies show that it IS working. 

As the article points out: 

"Yet Cross argues (without evidence) that it is “a fantasy” to think we can reduce fossil fuel use (and greenhouse gases) without harming the economy. This is a bizarre claim. Canadians know from everyday experience in their homes and businesses that there are many economically sensible ways to conserve energy and reduce fuel use – like switching to fluorescent light bulbs, or fuel efficient cars and furnaces.
If putting a price on carbon is such an economically bad idea, why is it being recommended by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the World Bank, and the CEOs of major oil companies?”

Other opponents point out that solar power (or wind, or geothermal, or whatever) has it's own carbon footprint.  Very true.  Nothing we can do, as humans on this planet, will be perfect.  Everything will have an impact at some level.  But let's consider that some forms of energy production are considerably better than others.  The Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology in the UK recently came out with this article, the "Carbon Footprint of Electricity Generation".   Of course some will look askance at such reports.  This is Canada, after all, and acknowledging science disappeared under the Harper regime.  So obviously, appeals to science-based decision-making wouldn't work here.

Or in the USA, where the Congressional Committee on Science is headed by a gentleman who uses snowballs in Congress to "prove" that climate change and global warming isn't happening.  

Despite the obvious fact that a decade of Harper failed to get any pipelines built, some Albertans rant constantly about how Trudeau isn't helping to get Alberta crude to market.  Now that Harper has been defeated, Michael Harris has turned his acerbic wit on the oilpatch supporters, taking a quote from the former, short-lived, Alberta premier, Jim Prentice.

There is talk of a revolution.  An overthrow of government....  A kudatah, no less.

And here we are.