Our contingent of Liberal supporters has fallen mute. No one, it seems, wants to defend the Trudeau government's decision approving the Trans-Mountain/Justin Trudeau Memorial Pipeline.
That the pre-ordained approval was announced less than 24 hours after those same Liberals stood in the House to support a motion declaring a state of climate emergency in Canada was - well - precious, wasn't it? Gee folks, how morally empty is your party anyway?
Pre-ordained? Yeah, pre-ordained. This project was going through the minute Morneau cut a 4.5-billion dollar cheque to the EnRon Brigade, a.k.a. Kinder-Morgan to buy that pipeline on behalf of you and me.
BigCityLib put up a half-hearted defence. It will never get built, he says. It was merely a 4.5 billion dollar stunt to appease the almost-West writes BCL. My sense is that, like many Liberal stalwarts, BCL can't bring himself to accept his party doing something as environmentally horrendous as this, not when our own country has cried 'uncle' and declared a state of climate emergency. Or maybe they didn't mean that either.
C'mon, Liberals, you know who you are. This is your party. That's your leader. Defend TMX in a world heading toward climate catastrophe, possibly a sixth mass extinction. Tell us how it's a good thing for somebody - maybe Kenney and Moe and Justin? Tell us it's good for a world in peril, for the poor and vulnerable who are already being displaced, in some cases dying from the early-onset impacts of climate change.
Maybe you don't want to get into that. Maybe you don't want to talk about what that extra million barrels of bitumen per day will mean to the world, to us and especially to your grandchildren. Well then at least tell us how it's good for your party, the Liberal Party of Canada.
Ship by train or ship by pipeline?
ReplyDeleteUU
ReplyDeleteUU, you really don't get it, do you?
Actually, a friend who works in the oil industry (but supports ending oil anyway) says trains are better. You don't spill tens of thousands of barrels from a train. If something goes wrong with a train, it's just that train--probably just that train car. And he pointed out the dirty little not-so-secret-these-days: All pipelines leak, all the time; they don't even know where. Just a bit at a time, but the total amount of oil unaccounted for after it goes through those pipes ends up being huge. Trains probably leak less because any time one does it happens where you can see it and so you stop it.
ReplyDeleteFar as I'm concerned, trains are better because they don't have so much lock-in. Railways are multipurpose. We used railways before there was bitumen shipped on 'em and we will use railways after bitumen stops being shipped on 'em (unless or until civilization falls, anyway). But pipelines are only good for one thing, one thing we need to stop doing; why build an asset we need to strand?
ReplyDeleteThat decision was taken, PLG, when those Texas bandits fleeced Morneau on the pipeline sale. Yesterday's announcement was pure Kabuki theatre.
Actually, I do get it. Meanwhile, oil shipments by train have increased fourfold since Lac Megantic. Been any train accidents in the Rockies lately? Only a matter of time until it's one laden with oil.
ReplyDeleteAs for pipelines leaking, yes. Companies (and governments) need to be seriously held responsible for that.
UU
The next thing will be making fentanyl OTC to respond to the opioid crisis.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteUU, I'm not sure what planet you're living on but holding companies and governments responsible, really? You need to brush up on the conduct and history of petro-states. That doesn't happen, perhaps with the exception of Norway. Look at Alberta's orphan wells. Or the quarter-trillion dollar catastrophe of the Athabasca tailing ponds. Or your boy, Trudeau's, decision to exempt some Tar Sands operators from carbon regulation. We're not holding them responsible. We're absolving them of responsibility. Get a grip.
What surprised me is the calm around this. Not just here but I checked national Newswatch, ipolitics, the Groat and Flal , the last post and Suns. None of them had much to say one way or another. Canadians seem neither pleased nor displeased , just calm.
ReplyDeleteIt may be that everyone knows this will go again to the Supremes where first nations will win. The racism of oil barrelers who won't move their pipe to protect drinking water has pretty much assured a loss for their side. If you see a bunch of people with bitten off noses around Calgary you know they are oil men ( all men of course ).
Maybe everyone knows that nothing will happen until we all learn to get along.
Your friend UU needs to understand that this tar needs to stay in the ground or we're going to destroy the planet.
ReplyDeleteI am SICK of Cons whining about not getting any support and then when we buy out pipelines to shut them up and spend billions per year in subsidies, they continue to whine.
I'm sorry, but if you're into carbon production, you're an idiot.
Decarbonization will be THE word over the next few years and leaders will bring us there as quickly as possible before we destroy this very rare thing called Earth.