By Nate Dolha
Published: April 12, 2014
In my last piece, I wrote about why an LNG Plant is a good choice for our community. I do believe this is still the case, but thought it may do us all some good to explore why we need to export our energy in the first place. This is the part of the discussion avoided by supporters and opponents alike, so I thought I’d broach it.
The thought of this plant in our community brought out a significant amount of commentary, and shall we say, emotion.
There are lots of reasons why or why not, and frankly, the folks engaged have already made up their minds. Now, before we all get indignant and chuck more mud around, remember: I am an opinion writer. Deal with it.
Now, back to the topic at hand. Simply put; we are the reason we need to export our resources to Asia. The only reason. Our nation was famously stitched together by a ribbon of steel running from coast to coast.
On November 7, 1885 the last spike was driven in Craigellachie, British Columbia, and the dream of a united Canada was realized. In the years that followed, Canadians began the business of building a nation, with the exploitation of our natural resources playing a major role.
Mining, forestry, agriculture, and petroleum spawned secondary and tertiary industries, and millions of jobs. In the years following the Second World War, these industries paved the way for the comfortable, modern Canada we all enjoy today.
At some point, this all changed. Some blame NAFTA, some blame globalization in general, but our prowess in manufacturing Canadian products for Canadians began to erode. We offshored much of our industrial capacity; shipbuilding, steel production, defense industries, oil refining. You name it, we killed it.
Faster, cheaper and Not in my Backyard has become our mantra as a consumer society, and with it, our sovereignty is slowly eroding. We want, and have come to depend on, cheap imports; every business, every cause, every good intention is touched by our dirty little secret.
Today’s discussion around pipelines and resource exports is a prime example of the divide between where we are as a nation, and where we could be. It also highlights our detachment from the situation we have created for ourselves. The coal we export? It is used to make the steel we need for our infrastructure, our buildings and our cars. The natural gas we will export from Squamish?
It will be burned in power plants in China and beyond, and that electricity will be used to build our phones, computers, toys, and everything else with a Made in China sticker on the bottom.
As hard as it may be for us to believe, we are responsible for this, regardless of how much we detest it, or what cause we stand for. The hypocrisy we exhibit as a community, and to a larger extent, a nation, runs far deeper that the sitting behind a mac argument that surfaces in this debate. It is about us putting our choices out of sight, out of mind. It’s about us sitting in our glass house, blindly throwing stones, and picking a villain.
And guess what? That villain is you and me.
I can be reached on Twitter: @natedolha
Jean says
Hi Nate
The villain is maybe you but not me article…..
Lots to reply to, to much to answer, for a working men that has his plate full to try to get household Gas and writing back and forth to BCUC, them not helping, as an appointed organization, with old outdated rules and not on the side of the little men…but rather rubber stamping, an unnecessary bureaucracy much like the Senate.
Can you trust an organization that has all the resources at hand and had the nerve to forecast a 100 000 job creation by LNG, what people read as creating it here in BC!!! …. that is not happening… can anyone believe then the 100 Billion as well, that they forecast ?
If all the public that is commuting, would demand at least, that FortisBC would have to make CNG available everywhere, for the transportation and commuting public, with huge cost savings to the consumer, if everybody would have at least household Gas and could use it in there vehicles, by charging it up at home with additional time savings, then reducing the greenhouse gas emission of there gasoline and diesel gosling cars etc. big time.
I believe, it would be in the interest of all parties, to be able to receive domestic Gas at reasonable cost and with it, for FortisBC ,s interest as well, to make additional domestic sales, therefore if vigorously promoted, there would be no need, to develop an uncertain LNG export venture, with the many uncertainties at this time and starting to become evident more and more, as to pollution, potential losses of investment in a uncertain LNG venture market, that will not produce the desired and advertised revenue, and definitely not the desired job opportunities here as suggested and forecast . The potential raising of the domestic Gas cost to the consumer of household Gas is also a real possibility should the Gas companies be allowed to export in Bulk our precious resource that should be used for domestic growth, Job creation and our prosperity. Instead the promotion of alternative power/electricity supply should be promoted and the money spend on fracking used for research and assistance to those that would be willing and capable to provide for the future clean energy, with it creating real jobs and becoming leaders World wide in this field. A soon to be advertised new product at present in the R+D, will further be a considerable additional demand for domestic Gas sales from FortisBC and other Gas companies, making the expansions into the unproven and hastily promoted LNG craze unnecessary. As by FortisBC,s own promotion and admittance, that a present already existing Alberta 100 year Gas supply is available to them, without further Fracking, making additional Fracking unnecessary and with it, the controversy about this process, could go away peacefully.
Richard Tripp says
A very pragmatic consideration, as is usually presented by you Nate. I suspect this will be bound to raise the ire of many a resource development opponent. So be it.
As pointed out in your article many of those for or against are not going to be swayed by anything. For the rest, and I suspect majority, of us your view point serves as a timely reminder to consider our complicity when reacting (or not) to the actions and decisions taken by others. While all of these issues have varying degrees of undesirables associated with them they also come with benefits to fellow citizens, even when not to ourselves. What may not be palatable to ourselves may be desirable or even necessary to others.
Few, if any, of us can truly claim we and our choices are not part of cause and effect in these issues. It’s time more of us owned those realities, sought realistic middle grounds rather than demand changes that suit us but are not viable when mixed into the broader picture of our country’s current economic framework.
Adam says
Nate,
I don’t see the LNG battle as one in which anyone is ‘blindly throwing stones’. This is a real battle with right and wrong and the efforts I will make in my community to stop this project will be carefully planned and thought out. Nothing blind about it.
You rightly note that this is our collective doing. This doesn’t however oblige us to a set path. It’s a problem that IS ours to fix.
Supporting LNG is easy. It saves you from needing to make any major contribution back to society. You don’t need to work to figure out what should replace industry or invest time figuring out how we can reduce our impact on the environment. You just sit by while Canada is stripped of resources with no value add. You can turn a blind eye as workers are marginalized and you can defer addressing climate and health challenges via denial. Richard justified it by saying LNG is necessary because of our ‘current economic framework’. Call it what you want but at it’s core, it’s an inability to envision a different and better future for this Country.
Now more than ever, we need real leaders who can begin the work of correcting the choices of the past and setting a viable and sustainable path forward. I’m hard pressed to see how LNG is that path – from any perspective.
Craig D. McConnell says
Hello Adam,
Assuming you want to initiate a “major contribution to society” and articulate the traits of “real leaders” how about responding to my last post on Your View, “Stop The Fearmongering About LNG.” Your accusations of my “vested interest” and “conflict of interest” have been addressed further to your requested “clarifying disclosure.”
Adam, it is your turn in the interest of transparency. Again, how about disclosing your full name, Squamish community history, and past or current membership or affiliation to Non-Government Agencies (NGOs), non-profit societies, lobbying or special interest groups. If you envision a different and better future for BC and Canada, please present your plan! We are listening.
Best Regards, Craig D. McConnell
Brad says
I think the truth here among the anti-LNG folks is that they are anti-industry, period. Key words they use are ‘pristine’, ‘ugly’ and ‘smelly’. No industry can satisfy the desire for the former one or avoid completely the latter two. And that is all well and good if you work a job that is several steps removed from primary industrial processes and can engage in the fantasy that you aren’t in fact a benefactor of those processes, both as a worker and as a consumer. It’s also nice if your job is in the city — you can demand pristine surroundings because you aren’t dependent on those surroundings to earn a living. It’s classic NIMBYism wrapped up in the toga of environmentalism.
But more troubling — if this and/or subsequent industrial pitches for the Woodfibre (and elsewhere) site is derailed — is this: if we cannot say yes to an industrial development significantly better in terms of local pollution than the pulp mill it replaced on land zoned for heavy industry and set aside in the OCP for it, then what can we say yes to? Who would bother investing here knowing a chorus of protest lies in wait? And what happens to the lesser skilled, not quite so highly educated blue collar folk who used to be the mainstay of our community who would most benefit from jobs like these? The ones who can no longer afford a home in their own community because of the recent influx? I guess that’s why we’re now fighting for ‘living wage’ jobs at Starbucks. That’s all that’s left.
Richard Tripp says
LNG plant aside Brad, a couple of points you raise here are applicable to a broader conversation as well. The problem I have with rhetoric about replacing industry and fossil fuel consumption with a better way (whatever that may be) is that no one seems to be real specific about what that is, how the transition will take place, and who will foot the bills for our collective society during that transition period. So when something comes along that is cleaner, lower impacting, done better than previously etc. and still gets shouted down by environmentalists it’s extremely challenging to give their viewpoint credibility or consideration.