Canada Going in the Wrong Direction

Today we learn that reports show that growth in the Tar Sands is negating all progress in reducing Canada’s contribution to greenhouse gases.  The report recommends we buy carbon credits abroad to offset our own pollution.  I can’t think of a stupider solution to this problem. 

Activists have been telling Prime Minister Harper for years that expanding the Tar Sands is a wrong-headed policy and today’s news proves it.  It is not possible to be a legitimate world citizen and expand production in the Tar Sands.  They are simply too dirty.  We have to leave the vast majority of Tar Sands oil in the ground.  In fact, we have to leave a great deal of conventional oil and gas in the ground – let alone unconventional sources that are even less efficient.  (See Canada’s carbon budget in extended data table 3.)

How can it possibly help Canadian economic development to buy carbon credits from other countries, in effect financing their conversion to renewable energy, while we stay stuck in this old, dirty technology.  How will Canada ever compete in the twenty-first century with a carbon-based energy system? 

The only way forward for Canada is to plan a quick transition to renewable energy.  All investment towards oil and gas exploration, tar sands expansion, and fracking should be redirected toward developing the technology and infrastructure to run our factories, heat our homes and run our cars on renewable energy. 

It’s time for Harper to start planning Canadian economic policy in the interest of Canadians in this and coming generations.  It is time for Canada to cooperate with world efforts to respond to the climate crisis, instead of lining the pockets of his buddies in the oil sector at everyone else’s expense.