Oil Sands Debate
Read the face-off between global governance expert Thomas Homer-Dixon and Globe columnist Konrad Yakabuski
Read the face-off between global governance expert Thomas Homer-Dixon and Globe columnist Konrad Yakabuski
If President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.
Ontario, we’re told, is Canada’s new rust belt. The high dollar is pummelling the province’s exports. Big manufacturers are fleeing. The Liberal government is slashing spending to maintain the province’s credit rating.
Humankind will have to invest staggering resources to find and produce new oil if global output is to grow steadily. We’re likely much closer to the tipping point than optimists think
A quarter of a century after we first heard it, the word “Chernobyl” stands in our minds for technological calamity borne of incompetence. Environmentalists used the label to deliver a near-fatal blow to the nuclear power industry. What will Fukushima mean to us in 2036, and how will we have used the label to change our world?
We Canadians like to think we are green, but when it comes to protecting the environment, we are among the world’s worst actors. Whether the metric is carbon output per capita, toxic waste emissions or protection of endangered species, Canada regularly ranks near the bottom of the list of similarly wealthy countries. If our economy’s incentives start pulling in the same direction as our ethical impulses, Canadians can do better. At present, they are pulling in opposite directions.
with Julio Friedmann | Alberta appears to be in a box – an energy box – that constrains policy options in every direction. The province’s wealth is critically tied to exploitation of its vast hydrocarbon resources.
with David Keith | What should we do with the carbon we produce when we burn fossil fuels? Some experts say we should fight climate change by putting the carbon back underground, whence it came.
On July 18, the National Petroleum Council delivered a blockbuster report to the US Secretary of Energy. The council advises the US federal government on energy issues. The council’s report—entitled Facing Hard Truths about Energy—assesses the “future of oil and natural gas to 2030 in the context of the global energy system.” Its 400 pages reveal a major shift in the energy industry’s publicly stated views about humankind’s energy prospects: We’re running out of cheap oil.
Having to search farther and longer for our resources isn’t the only new hurdle we face. Climate change could also constrain growth. A steady stream of evidence now indicates that the planet is warming quickly and that the economic impact on agriculture, our built environment, ecosystems and human health could, in time, be very large.