How about this: we leave it in the fucking ground.
Or hear me out here instead of selling out to companies from other countries that don’t give a single fuck about Canadians or companies that already operate here that once again give no fucks about the people that are employed by them we should take use and harness the resources that we have.
While I’m neither pro nor con for oil, it’s one hell of a resource and we already have tons of people who are experienced in the field that could get put on for work.
Now with that I would also like to also see the oil being kept up here in Canada instead of selling it to the states for pennies and then being brought right back up to be sold for dollars. Yes I am fully aware that this is an extremely simplified extrapolation of what is going on.
One pipe dream if I may, is having our own public energy sector in Canada. Meaning in this case oil is drilled out by Canadians, with proper policies to take care of the land, where old wells and sites are actually cleaned up cared of. More directional drilling vs fracking. Employees are not abused to shit or have to work feeling that there is an axe at their neck based on global issues. And all of this goes to fellow Canadians so they are able to do as needed.
The thing is we have larger issues in the country than just the over simplification listed above. So maybe, you are correct, just leave it in the ground.
I think nationalizing the industry (essentially) is a far better state than what we have now but, tbh, I suspect that if we looked at the amount of expected revenue, the amount of damage to extract that revenue, and the GHGs that oil would translate to… we’d probably find the balance lacking for the per capita savings. AFAIK from the environmental studies we’ve seen on previous site cleanup the externalities purely to drilling are pretty atrocious, when we also consider the refining costs, the GHG costs, the occasional disasters like Lac-Mégantic vs. the expected revenue per Canadian I honestly don’t think oil makes much sense.
Going full green and getting the global clout for that while having a clean conscious is a much more appealing possibility.
I think nationalizing the industry is a far better state than what we have now
You may recall that was attempted in small part with the creation of Petro Canada.
And that it was subsequently privatized by a subsequent conservative government.
I think nationalizing the industry (essentially) is a far better state than what we have now
Justin tried doing that with a small portion of the sector and wow did that backfire. The whiny cons didn’t put that broken record away for months.
we should take use and
“take use” is a weird construct.
harness the resources that we have.
Here’s the thing: Every ounce burned creates emissions, which harms the atmosphere, which is already at a tipping point, and this on a 20-year lag. Burning the already extracted oil that’s being stored now will be enough to absolutely destroy to planet to where we can’t live on it, and we’re currently in the future we made 20 years ago, and the future we’d have if we only drastically reduced consumption just after Y2K but didn’t stop using it completely. We did neither, and so we have all this stashed oil we’re eager to use.
So we don’t even have to extract another ounce if we want to wreck the planet to where we’re extinct: We just need to use our reserves. Extracting that oil is no longer important, then. We can shut the rigs and walk away, and it’s already too late unless we make some serious investment in reversing what we’ve already done. We haven’t made appreciable progress yet, so killer heat-waves and ‘small’ killer storms that only cause a few hundred-billion-dollars worth of damage and a few thousand deaths each year is a nightmare scenario we’re only going to experience for a short time before it gets worse and keeps getting worth for 20 years – or more, if we keep going.