And don't get me wrong, I think this expansion program will happen once they revamp the process and I wont be camping out trying to defy KM. To do so would make me a hypocrite as a fair number of my paychecks have flowed from the exploration and production of old dinosaur bones. However I do also believe in the existence of global warming and so some of the profits from those bones should go to weening ourselves off them and looking more toward the sky instead of what's under our feet.
I'm 100% in favor of developing renewable energy. It's happening bit by bit, but fossil fuels will play a very large role in our economy for a very long time to come. Not just the part about selling fossil fuels to obtain money, but also the part about how fossil fuels play a large role in most of our key industries. Forestry, mining, agriculture, fishing, transportation, construction, and tourism (and all the related industries that depend on them) need fossil fuel, and will continue to need fossil fuel for a very long time. We are a very long way from being able to do away with fossil fuel in those industries, and in poorer countries that don't have the money to replace their existing equipment with new greener technologies, they're farther yet. We need fossil fuel.
I have this strange sense that many in BC, especially in the big city, are somewhat disconnected from that reality. I get the impression that many seem to think that since they work in front of a computer and they take the Skytrain to work, the city is just fine without gasoline and diesel fuel. I still can't get over what the squid wrote earlier:
What shuts down in BC if the pipeline does? A few tankers a day don’t come through? A few maintenance jobs along the corridor are lost? THe pipeline is no big deal to BC... it’s a HUGE deal to Alberta.
...yeah, no big deal. Just a few tankers, a few maintenance jobs, and
the fuel that makes all of British Columbia's most important industries possible. No big deal.
I wonder how many people in this province have taken the time to think about the impact of that fuel on their current standard of living, about things like what happens to the price of food if the price of transporting it to the grocery store goes through the roof, or how many people lose their jobs if the cost of getting the logs out of the mountain to the sawmill becomes uneconomical, or getting the ore out of the mine becomes uneconomical, or if diesel shortages restricted ship and train traffic at the Port of Vancouver, and so-on. I suspect an awful lot of people haven't given it a moment of thought.
-k