A response to MP Morrison on the Keystone XL permit cancellation
If MP Rob Morrison thinks President Biden’s cancellation the Keystone XL pipeline permit is ‘devastating news’, I suggest he take a good long look at the Paris agreement, the latest IPCC report, and the other thousands of studies. These state, unequivocally, that we need to the slash our carbon emissions immediately if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Pipelines designed to encourage the production of oil from the Alberta tar sands, oil that is amongst the most polluting in the world, just cannot be not part of our plan, not if we want a decent future for ourselves and our children.
We don’t, as Mr. Morrison states, need a tax base from tar sands oil to build a green economy, because we don’t need to make the mess we’re in any bigger than it already is. What we really need is for you and me and everyone else to roll up our sleeves, tighten our belts and without complaining, without making excuses, do what scientists keep telling us so urgently needs to be done: stop taking fossil fuels out of the ground, chucking them into the atmosphere and messing with our climate.
So I ask you, look around at our communities, the beautiful environment that surrounds us, the good life we have, and ask yourself, what could be worth risking this? Not money, surely. Jobs matter, of course they do, but some things matter more.
There are many ways to make a living, many ways to create jobs. What we need is government policies that the give Canadians in Alberta and elsewhere the training they need to transition out of fossil fuels and into good jobs in the sustainable industries of the future, not ones that throw money down pipelines along a dead end road.
Ruth Kamnitzer
Kimberley