Environment 

Albertans have always demanded good stewardship of our natural environment. However, we also understand that protecting our environment does not mean unnecessarily harming economic progress. In fact, history clearly demonstrates that those jurisdictions with strong economies are more able and willing to invest in and protect their environment when compared with those who have less.

It is thus important that government avoid enacting policies for the sake of simply appearing to be accomplishing something. Our current provincial government’s reckless insistence on massive investments totaling $2 billion into various carbon capture and storage projects is one very expensive example of such.

With the many shortages we are facing in health, education and other areas of need in our province, it defies imagination that we cannot find a better use for the hard-earned money of Alberta’s citizens.

Even more disturbing is our government’s apparent willingness to participate in a global cap and trade program for carbon dioxide. Almost certainly, this kind of scheme would result in another massive wealth transfer out of Alberta. And by any objective reckoning, it has the potential to dwarf the recent sub-prime mortgage fiasco and become the biggest global Ponzi scheme in human history.

In watching the coverage of the December 2009 Copenhagen conference on global warming, one could not help but feel revulsion at the spectacle of foreign leaders of “thugocracies” railing against industrialized western democracies and then shamelessly demanding billions of dollars in “reparations.”  And who could not feel a nearly equivalent disgust at the infantile attacks on Alberta’s oil sands by international environmental activists with the support of delegations sent by the Ontario and Quebec provincial governments? As Rex Murphy of the CBC stated recently, “Climate Science has been shown to be, in part, a sub-branch of Climate Politics.” (click here for his commentary).

To be clear, extracting the valuable resources from Alberta’s oil sands does result in additional carbon dioxide as a by-product – an annual volume equal to about 5 percent of all Canada’s man-made carbon dioxide. Canada, in turn, produces some 2 percent of the man-made carbon dioxide in the entire world. By far the majority of the world’s carbon dioxide, however, is not produced by human activities but rather by natural processes – in point of fact, only about 3 percent of global carbon dioxide is produced by mankind.

In other words, the contribution of Alberta’s oil sands is 5 percent of 2 percent of 3 percent – roughly equivalent to 0.00003 of the currently estimated quantity of carbon dioxide in the world.

By way of comparison, our oil sands industrial activity is dwarfed by that of China. Now the world’s largest nation and largest emitter of man-made carbon dioxide, China is building new coal-fired power plants at a rate reportedly greater than five every month.

The earth’s climate has been in constant change throughout history. Additional scientific study is required to more fully understand the major underlying reasons for such changes. At the same time, we need to responsibly assess the impact that human activities are having on our environment and to develop viable plans to minimize those that are most detrimental. And we will need to come up with ways to adapt to changing climatic conditions irrespective of the cause.

For the immediate future, it is my view that our provincial government should be focusing less on trying to make miniscule reductions in the world’s carbon dioxide levels and more on practical strategies that will improve our environment, stimulate economic growth and provide utility to its citizens. 

Expanding mass transit infrastructure and incenting energy-conserving residential, commercial and industrial retrofits are examples of truly ‘green’ initiatives that will have immediate and tangible environmental and economic benefits.