I’ve made postings about climate change, I’m a stay a home father, and I’m a former biology teacher who owns a cloth diaper store and has a greenhouse. I might be accused of being a tree-hugging new age hippie. Or at least, the arctic equivalent of a tree-hugger, since hugging arctic dwarf scrub willows is just lying on a pile of broken twigs that will take 50 years to grow back. Yes I am in favour of doing something about climate change, including having a carbon tax. Are you ready for the ‘but…’? But I’m in favour of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
There is a lot of room for me to be wrong here. There are some very polarized views bouncing around out there. Okay, that is the story of our life until the world gets over this internet fad. This time, though, finding the rational path through it would either involve extensive research or some risky guess work. So risky guess work it will be, then.
Oops – my editor tells me the internet doesn’t appear to be a fad and probably won’t go away. I guess we will have to find new, healthier ways of using it to engage with each other. Someone should think about that.
Canadian oil sells at a serious discount to the price of oil in the US. That means that in October when West Texas oil was at $75 a barrel, it was $35 for Western Canadian oil. Some of that is temporary due to refinery shut downs, and the price has rebounded part way back due in part to output cutbacks. Still, it is a long standing issue that is just more dramatic now. Some of it is also likely a reflection of the lower quality of Canadian oil, but I’m going presume that there is still a significant price gap due to a lack of export capacity (Debatable point #1).
Okay, so how do we move oil over land? trains or pipelines, generally. Trains cost three times the price and on balance, seem to have greater human and environmental costs. That is a key point for the argument to build pipelines, so you’d think the answer is well established, but this point is – that’s right – a matter of some debate (Debatable point #2).
Next comes the environmental debate. Should we be building pipelines to move oil when we should stop using oil? Well, I don’t think that is actually the question at all. The question is, will building or not building pipelines make a substantial difference at all to the amount of oil moved? I think the answer is no (Debatable point #3). The oil will go, but will go by train or by truck even. And it will go at half price. If we have to choose between selling our oil to the US for half price and risking environmental damage or building a pipeline, most people would say that the pipeline is better. Those that don’t would likely disagree on one of the debatable points that got to that conclusion, and my opinion hinges on those points too.
Obviously Then…
So obviously I’m pro Trans Mountain. Right? Mmmmm.
Sort of. I’m more in favour of not stealing, cheating or tricking people, and so if an indigenous group says no, then that’s that for that.
Typical fight between kids:
Kid 1: “I’m playing with the toy train.”
Kid 2: “I want to play with it!”
Kid 1: “I’m playing with the toy train.”
Kid 2: “I want to play with it!”
Kid 1: “I’m playing with the toy train.”
Kid 2: “But I really need it!”
Now replace Kid 1 with “Indigenous groups” and Kid 2 with the oil industry, supporters of the oil industry, and those that pray to the statue of Economic Growth (mostly everyone else).
Not practical to go around their territory? You want to go through really, really badly? Oh well, then. That’s different. By all means. Go ahead. I know how you feel. You really want it, and you are going to use it for something really Important and the land is just sitting there Empty right now.
Settlers really wanted all the good farmland, and they took that. Settlers wanted all the convenient habitable land close to navigable waterways and they took that. You just want to build a teensy weensy little pipe beside another pipe. Makes a lot of sense, and they are just being difficult. So you should be able to go ahead too, right? Well, ‘right’ is exactly the wrong word to use here.
If Indigenous peoples hadn’t been ignored, lied to, cheated and marginalized for 200 years in BC would they be more willing to engage in this project? Probably, but it isn’t just about process, there is concern for the environment which is not insignificant. That concern is of course wildly magnified by the whole trust thing.
Is there a solution?
I don’t know if there is a solution. If not, it is too bad for the Canadian economy. The several million dollars a day that we are discounting the US by selling them our oil cheaply could be used for investments in renewable energy (or at least some of the taxes and royalties on it). Between that and the risk of train derailment, it is too bad for the environment.
The lesson? Be nice to people, be respectful, and don’t lie and cheat and then, when suddenly you want what they have, there might be a path of mutual benefit. If not? Well, it’s too late for that now. That ship has sailed, and it isn’t an oil tanker.
There is one possible and very interesting solution. An Indigenous owned pipeline. Then they don’t have to trust the government and corporate systems with their own safety. Then they can lift it to higher environmental standards that the minimums by law. Then they can profit sustainably for their risk. It is an elegant solution and one that is actively being pursued by indigenous business groups, but still requires consent of everyone along the pipeline route, so is no sure thing.
To those that say we must leave the oil in the ground, I agree. But there is only one way to do that. Just leaving it there when there are real benefits to pulling it out (economic and energy security benefits) is not going to happen, sadly. That is human nature and I talked about it last week: we humans can’t put genies back in bottles. It is a collective character flaw.
The one way to have oil stay in the ground is to have competitive alternatives. We need to make it so no one wants it. We need to make the right thing the easy thing, as my wife likes to say.
We need wind and solar and tidal and geothermal and whatever else there is to progress (quickly) to the point of competitiveness and scalability. We need to get to the point that no one wants to bother digging and piping gooey toxic oil half way around the planet when we can have local energy production. That is the only solution, and the greenhouse gas predictions don’t give us much time. Let’s focus on that, and let’s use the billions we get for selling oil at a fair market price to help do it.
The day will come when our ancestors (not very far down the line, I hope), will look back and shake their heads about our time, as generations always do. One of the things they will shake their heads about is oil, pipelines and climate change inaction. We need to hold that perspective and do what is right for the long view. Strange as it may sound – and it does sound strange – that may include a new oil pipeline.
Pipelines have super-high up-front costs that make them long term investments. I hope for an indigenous ownership group with high environmental standards, and I hope they do well financially for it. I also, however, hope that some day in my lifetime (and the sooner the better) those pipelines no longer carry oil because no one wants it anymore or we all somehow miraculously put our shovels away. I can’t wait for my first magnetic levitation high speed ride in a retro-fitted oil pipeline. Perhaps a weekend getaway trip from Edmonton to Vancouver. Non-smoking, of course.
