A New Energy Policy, A New Economy

A New Energy Policy, A New Economy

It is the day after Obama was re-elected and the Dow/Dao fell 312. The TSX fell 130.  It was not a free fall.  It held steady the last 3 hours before the close.  Pundits are suggesting this is not a reaction to the renewed Obama presidency.  In fact, futures were going up after the President was declared re-elected.  The fall may be more related to negative speeches made in the early morning about the financial crisis in Germany and concern over a possible contraction in the American economy if Obama cannot negotiate an acceptable strategy for dealing with taxes and the debt.

But there could also be some anxiety over Obama’s approach to energy security.  In his acceptance speech he actually drew attention to the looming problem of climate change.  What will be the US energy policy to deal with this developing crisis?  The environmentalists voted for him because he delayed the XL pipeline.  Romney said he would approve it the first day of his presidency.  Will Obama delay that pipeline with investigation and environmental assessment?    Will the people's will or the oil company interests prevail?

Harper is not pleased to have to do battle with the President of the United States who is supposed to be his buddy and ally.  Harper will not like begging to be allowed to set up systems for delivering a higher volume of dilbit to the United States.  The US was supposed to want an unlimited amount of our dirty oil.   Maybe industry and the stock market are nervous that energy policy is about to change.

But if Obama focuses on renewables (as we want him to do), the demand for oil might not come back.  It might even continue to contract.  This could leave oil companies over-extended and in trouble.  As anti-pipeline activists let us separate our objectives.  Our objectives are not to destroy oil companies.  Our objective is to work with energy executives to plan the down-sizing of the oil sands in order to focus on energy conservation and renewable energy.  The big money will no longer be made from ecocidal mining of oil and other minerals.  

We want the big money to be made in making anything that uses power to be more energy efficient:  anything that improves on current batteries and energy storage systems;  anything that sets up systems to make hydrogen whenever there is electricity being wasted;  innovation in networking complex power grids and setting up systems for maximum efficiency.  Maximum innovation must be stimulated in these areas.  The oil, coal, and nuclear industries must learn to change their focus and make money in the new economy.  We may need transition programming to help them convert.  We need energy executives to lead us forward toward a greenhouse gas--free world.  

We need to understand as a society that when we conduct such activities as mining, we must, intentionally, design the mining or forestry processes for minimum impact on the surrounding ecosystems.  We must internalize the cost of preserving the environment into the price of any activity we undertake. 

Both companies and government must incorporate environmental and human well-being indexes into the measure of how successful our economy is.  GDP will be one among several indicators tracked on a regular basis.   

In my dream world, during this time of transition, the United Nations would be leading a political dialogue with all the leaders of the world on how we could build a world at peace and stop spending the world's resources on manufacturing weapons and nuclear power plants.

I would like to see the world organized by watersheds such as the Athabasca Watershed.  Very large river catchment areas would be countries.  They might be broken into several provinces drained by main feeder tributaries.  Municipalities would centre around local watersheds.  People would be intimately connected with the water that provides the life-giving capacity of the land.

In my dream world, the law would be changed so that private corporations would have equal fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and to the community.  We need a market-based economy to ensure that we encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.  We also need it accepted in the core values of society that the activities of private companies have a big impact on the communities in which they are located and on the surrounding environment.  No activity that produces a negative bottom-line for the community or the environment can be considered to be beneficial to shareholders.  The co-op model of enterprise where workers own their own means of production is to be encouraged.

In my dream world we would also substantially reduce military spending.  We can solve the world’s oil crisis by massively reducing consumption.  We need to take similar steps with water.  We cannot afford a century of war over these precious resources.  Instead, we need to develop peaceful means to negotiate, and share the resources we have.  With the financial dividend achieved by reduced military spending, we create jobs in environmental reclamation, environmental assessment, environmental management, health care, education, social work, transportation, and so on.  We build the new infrastructure and work out piece-by-piece which parts are best done by the public and which by the private sector and how the two complement each other.  This is how we must share the wealth in a service-based economy where everyone has worth and dignity and all who are able have the opportunity to contribute through meaningful work.