‘Do I die by starvation, or do I die by poisoning?’
November 14, 2014 10:56 AM Subscribe
Taking Canadian Highway 63 straight north from Fort McMurray, during the half-lit hours of the morning commute, I moved past the old downtown, with its bars and weekly-rate hotels, past the sprawling suburbs and high-speed ring road, into expanses of peat-rich muskeg and forests of tamarack and spruce. As the sun climbed, cars became scarce and the road seemed to stretch endlessly toward the horizon. Traveling from McMurray to McKay doesn’t take long—it’s less than 40 miles—but the transformation you see in that short distance is astounding.
.
posted by lalochezia at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2014
posted by lalochezia at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2014
Damn, what a mess.
You know that oh, so, inefficient solar and wind power? Let's compare hidden costs.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:44 AM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
You know that oh, so, inefficient solar and wind power? Let's compare hidden costs.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:44 AM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
There is nothing more to say about the calamity that faces us all as the residents of this world.
We could have been stewards.
We choose to suffocate each other... for but a moment of "comfort".
.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 12:12 PM on November 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
We could have been stewards.
We choose to suffocate each other... for but a moment of "comfort".
.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 12:12 PM on November 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
It frustrates me how cavalier people seem to be about the hazards of fossil fuels when there are such big freakouts about nuclear power. Maybe if they put things in terms of Chernobyl exclusion zones people would get the picture.
Like, we have 54 Chernobyls that have oil sands under them, and are currently nearing 0.5 Chernobyls of actual cleared area out of the 1.8 Chernobyls that have the oil nearest the surface. (someone can check my math)
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
Like, we have 54 Chernobyls that have oil sands under them, and are currently nearing 0.5 Chernobyls of actual cleared area out of the 1.8 Chernobyls that have the oil nearest the surface. (someone can check my math)
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
The Keystone thing is a bit of a sideshow. Even if, somehow, Keystone didn't happen, there are other ways to get the bitumen out of Alberta. A westbound pipeline to the Pacific coast, and thence to China, is mentioned in the article and is the likely alternative.
As long as the Canadian government allows the mining to take place, someone will figure out how to get the bitumen out. A pipeline is actually one of the least environmentally-damaging ways of doing it (uses less energy than putting it on trains, which is the next-best).
The problem is the mining. It's a thousand times worse in terms of impact than the pipeline construction by any measure. The only thing that you can argue is worse than that, in the final analysis, is the possible global impact of all the CO2 being released.
It's unfortunate that it's required the pipeline for Americans to take notice of what's going on up there.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:27 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
As long as the Canadian government allows the mining to take place, someone will figure out how to get the bitumen out. A pipeline is actually one of the least environmentally-damaging ways of doing it (uses less energy than putting it on trains, which is the next-best).
The problem is the mining. It's a thousand times worse in terms of impact than the pipeline construction by any measure. The only thing that you can argue is worse than that, in the final analysis, is the possible global impact of all the CO2 being released.
It's unfortunate that it's required the pipeline for Americans to take notice of what's going on up there.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:27 PM on November 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
...0.5 Chernobyls of actual cleared area out of the 1.8 Chernobyls that have the oil nearest the surface.
Shouldn't the goal to be eliminating all Chernobyls?
With the added objective being reduced power consumption by all but the poorest countries.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:55 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Shouldn't the goal to be eliminating all Chernobyls?
With the added objective being reduced power consumption by all but the poorest countries.
posted by BlueHorse at 12:55 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
The House has passed Keystone bills before. None of them made it to the Senate, and even if this one does, Obama isn't likely to sign it.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:03 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:03 PM on November 14, 2014
I shared this article with my son, who is an engineer in Fort MacMurray. Here is what he wrote back to me:
posted by No Robots at 1:24 PM on November 14, 2014 [32 favorites]
It’s easy to target a distant mining operation leaving a landscape similar to “Hiroshima” as a villain in the global climate change discussion. What’s harder is to consider our own actions as the direct cause of this effect. While evocative pictures of desolate landscape and rock star quotes illicit immediate emotions and good intentions, the pictures that show the true problems should be of low-density suburban neighbourhoods, of congested free-ways (or any ring road), large format retail, and general modern consumerism. People love posting pictures of the oil sands from their single-family homes with freshly sodden yards while sipping lattes in unsustainable to-go packaging, which they drove their new crossover to get. I’m not specifically calling anyone out and I’m guilty of much of what I bring up, but I’m more angry about the demand that we are creating than I am about the ways we’re trying to meet that demand. Let’s not forget the important political and economic reasons for the pipeline, which I wish didn't make sense for us to build.I asked him if I could share this in the Metafilter discussion, and he said, "sure!"
posted by No Robots at 1:24 PM on November 14, 2014 [32 favorites]
I find it disheartening how the only part of the Alberta energy industry that ever gets media play Ft. McMurray. Not that the area doesn't have problems, but pipelines oil and gas developments criss-cross the province, with the same social and environmental problems trailing behind. In-situ operations are not as photogenic, I guess.
Also the article referred to the Alberta Energy Regulator as "a private consulting firm specializing in energy resources." Unfortunately appropriate.
posted by selenized at 1:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Also the article referred to the Alberta Energy Regulator as "a private consulting firm specializing in energy resources." Unfortunately appropriate.
posted by selenized at 1:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Related: Kate Beaton's wonderful Ducks, chronicling her time in Fort McMurray. The title refers to the same (a similar?) incident mentioned in the linked article, of wildfowl dying after landing in the oil sands waste.
posted by damayanti at 1:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by damayanti at 1:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
While No Robots' son's feelings are not entirely without merit, they don't really stand up to much scrutiny, either.
The reason people drive their SUVs to the Starbucks two miles down the road in order to order lattes in disposable plastic containers while blasting the heat and the air conditioning at the same time, or whatever it is they're doing, is because energy is cheap.
They are only behaving that way because of cheap oil.
If the price of energy goes up, those behaviors stop — immediately. The SUV or crossover would become a hybrid, the plastic cup would become paper, the air conditioner goes off, etc.
We saw this a little during the big jump in oil prices back in 2007-08. Suddenly you couldn't give a heavy SUV away, and small cars were back in demand. People actually started driving more slowly on the highways. Economists call it "demand destruction" and you get it when prices go up.
The tar sands are a desperate play to keep energy prices low, and in doing so, preserve the SUV-and-lattes-in-suburbia lifestyle.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [21 favorites]
The reason people drive their SUVs to the Starbucks two miles down the road in order to order lattes in disposable plastic containers while blasting the heat and the air conditioning at the same time, or whatever it is they're doing, is because energy is cheap.
They are only behaving that way because of cheap oil.
If the price of energy goes up, those behaviors stop — immediately. The SUV or crossover would become a hybrid, the plastic cup would become paper, the air conditioner goes off, etc.
We saw this a little during the big jump in oil prices back in 2007-08. Suddenly you couldn't give a heavy SUV away, and small cars were back in demand. People actually started driving more slowly on the highways. Economists call it "demand destruction" and you get it when prices go up.
The tar sands are a desperate play to keep energy prices low, and in doing so, preserve the SUV-and-lattes-in-suburbia lifestyle.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:59 PM on November 14, 2014 [21 favorites]
And the tar sands exist because the corporate-political complex is able to use money and force to externalize cost.
In accounting, a big debate is "how do you determine the cost of a product?" and the rubric is "all the costs that it takes to get the product, ready for use, in the hands of the purchaser". But even when you can trace all the costs, the whole thing becomes political, because companies and politicians are always pushing to externalize costs that ought to be in the product. The cost of the product needs to include the product's share of the reproduction of labor (ie, what it costs to keep the worker fit to work, meaning food and health care and support for the family and so on) and costs of the reproduction of the environment (meaning the costs to keep the planet in a steady state and not getting worse). Those are product costs, but the companies are always trying to force them back on the public or on the workers by paying shitty wages (as at Wal-mart where people get food stamps) or refusing both to pay directly for health care for workers and to pay the kind of taxes needed to support it. The cost of tar sands oil is even higher than it looks on the face of it, but the political power of the companies and their government cronies is such that they are able to get out of that cost.
posted by Frowner at 2:08 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
In accounting, a big debate is "how do you determine the cost of a product?" and the rubric is "all the costs that it takes to get the product, ready for use, in the hands of the purchaser". But even when you can trace all the costs, the whole thing becomes political, because companies and politicians are always pushing to externalize costs that ought to be in the product. The cost of the product needs to include the product's share of the reproduction of labor (ie, what it costs to keep the worker fit to work, meaning food and health care and support for the family and so on) and costs of the reproduction of the environment (meaning the costs to keep the planet in a steady state and not getting worse). Those are product costs, but the companies are always trying to force them back on the public or on the workers by paying shitty wages (as at Wal-mart where people get food stamps) or refusing both to pay directly for health care for workers and to pay the kind of taxes needed to support it. The cost of tar sands oil is even higher than it looks on the face of it, but the political power of the companies and their government cronies is such that they are able to get out of that cost.
posted by Frowner at 2:08 PM on November 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
Ie, it's never about consumer "choice"; it's always about producer power - who has the power to allocate what costs.
posted by Frowner at 2:09 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 2:09 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
No robots' son: People love posting pictures of the oil sands from their single-family homes with freshly sodden yards while sipping lattes in unsustainable to-go packaging, which they drove their new crossover to get.
While agree that our wasteful lifestyle needs to change, I don't really buy this defense-by-market-demand. Markets respond to price signals. If the cost of oil were to rise (due to stronger environmental controls for instance, and thus less supply), we would choose to buy smaller cars and drive less.
damayanti: Related: Kate Beaton's wonderful Ducks
Seconded.
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:14 PM on November 14, 2014
While agree that our wasteful lifestyle needs to change, I don't really buy this defense-by-market-demand. Markets respond to price signals. If the cost of oil were to rise (due to stronger environmental controls for instance, and thus less supply), we would choose to buy smaller cars and drive less.
damayanti: Related: Kate Beaton's wonderful Ducks
Seconded.
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:14 PM on November 14, 2014
Robots Jr. is a big boy, and if he wants to defend his views, he can pony up his five bucks. I will say, though, that I never hear anyone on the radio bitching about how low the gasoline prices are.
posted by No Robots at 2:19 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by No Robots at 2:19 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
And Kadin2048 I wouldn't say that the Tar sands are a desparate ploy to keep energy prices low on the macro scale (although the government blocking of environmental controls is definitely about keeping these businesses' costs low). It's just that energy costs have risen to the point where tar-sands extraction is now (barely) viable. Until we enact a strong *systemic level* environmental protection regime (like, say, a carbon tax), we will keep seeing uglier and uglier schemes to harvest oil pop up as the price rises.
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:19 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by Popular Ethics at 2:19 PM on November 14, 2014
If the cost of oil were to rise (due to stronger environmental controls for instance, and thus less supply), we would choose to buy smaller cars and drive less.
Which would make the pressure, both financial and political, to extract the 'wealth' of the tar sands even greater.
Supply and demand are a bit more complicated that people are making it out to be here.
Remember that England fracks. People with high energy costs will risk a lot to get energy.
posted by srboisvert at 2:23 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Which would make the pressure, both financial and political, to extract the 'wealth' of the tar sands even greater.
Supply and demand are a bit more complicated that people are making it out to be here.
Remember that England fracks. People with high energy costs will risk a lot to get energy.
posted by srboisvert at 2:23 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I shared this article with my son, who is an engineer in Fort MacMurray.
Thanks for writing that. Since we're not going to stop driving SUVs or sipping lattes on our own, I'd be interested to hear his perspective about government taxation of energy production and consumption, which should reduce demand, and how that would balance against the kind of employment that this demand creates, and how comfortable he would be if that kind of pressure were to put his livelihood at risk. Again, I appreciate the different perspective.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:33 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Thanks for writing that. Since we're not going to stop driving SUVs or sipping lattes on our own, I'd be interested to hear his perspective about government taxation of energy production and consumption, which should reduce demand, and how that would balance against the kind of employment that this demand creates, and how comfortable he would be if that kind of pressure were to put his livelihood at risk. Again, I appreciate the different perspective.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:33 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
There was an article in the local paper about how now that gas is "cheap" again people who were attempting before to drive less by walking or taking public transport are now all "wheee! I can drive everywhere again now!". This was presented as very positive news.
posted by telstar at 3:11 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by telstar at 3:11 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Several family members and many family friends (from Cape Breton, incidentally, like Kate Beaton) work on and off in Fort Mac at the various trades involved in getting the oil out of the ground and and the infrastructure around that. My husband works at a trade at the Shell refinery in Fort Saskatchewn. So yup, 2/3 of my family's income comes from dirty oil. I'm overwhelmed by the complexity of the whole thing when I try to think about it. I definitely feel an awful squirmy guilt. I do know, however, that it's incorrect to implicate the workers when locating blame for this mess. Despite the earnings of a scaffolder or a derrick hand or even an engineer, these people are damn low on the totem pole. Should they opt out of having a job, or at least one that pays a living wage? Because the alternative, at least for the tradespeople - especially the easterners out here - is grim. That said, I've never spoken to anyone who isn't horrified by what goes on in Fort Mac and environs - both environmentally and socially. And when it ends (as everyone knows it will), they'll have to make do with other jobs in other places. They know that. I don't know, my sentiment is pretty similar to No Robots' son: I crave a cultural shift, a change in our consumption habits. If that came about via taxation (fat chance), I'd be cool with that. Most people wouldn't (seriously, people who are already struggling to survive having to pay MORE for things?) but as someone who's family's livelihood currently derives from all this, that's my stance.
posted by kitcat at 3:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by kitcat at 3:16 PM on November 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
The idea of grinding this all up and squeezing it into a pipeline to the Gulf is such an indicator of the sheer size to the robbery. I think the real plan is to get this up and go north to the arctic, once it is in place. Utah is planning to put their transport road through a very important sacred site at Sego Canyon. Utah plans to do tar sands, does oil production then add nuclear, all along the Colorado River drainage. Pay no attention to the men behind the Zion curtain. The water for the west is at stake. In the middle east part of the state at Green River, they want to put in refineries to process the oil from the tar sand plan. Master plan, make money by trashing the sacred sites, air, and water central to the Moab, Canyonlands pristine area. Always thinking ahead.
posted by Oyéah at 3:17 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 3:17 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
kitcat, your 'stance' and that of No Robotson don't seem to take any notice of the First People dying of cancers at 35 and 40 -- cancers that the article says were unknown before this industry landed on those people. While your relatives will have to move to some other work when their lucrative jobs end, those whose families were on that land before Columbus are left with its devastated, poisonous remains. You can talk about changing lifestyles all you want, but the fact is that working those mines is profiting from evil, and does nothing to promote the lifestyle changes you claim to desire.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:30 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:30 PM on November 14, 2014
Sometimes I think Harper saw those Planet Danger PSAs when he was in university and thought "Yes, that's the look I want for Canada."
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:38 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:38 PM on November 14, 2014
What I'm reading is:
"See how low the gas prices are now? Makes you happy, doesn't it? Vote for the Keystone Pipeline and expansion of tar sands oil extraction and you get to keep your low prices - they may even go lower!! But stop the Pipeline and your gas prices will skyrocket. It's up to you."
posted by aryma at 3:46 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
"See how low the gas prices are now? Makes you happy, doesn't it? Vote for the Keystone Pipeline and expansion of tar sands oil extraction and you get to keep your low prices - they may even go lower!! But stop the Pipeline and your gas prices will skyrocket. It's up to you."
posted by aryma at 3:46 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Might as well go ahead and rename Alberta to Haliberta.
What a species we are.
posted by Fupped Duck at 3:47 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
What a species we are.
posted by Fupped Duck at 3:47 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I had a huge comment I was editing, but what I really want to say is that people need to vote, and need to vote against their own immediate benefit. Not some fear-mongering rhetoric that exaggerates the threat of outsiders, as currently dominates the media, but with measured consideration of existing data, veracity, and projected cost. But that seems unlikely to happen as we defund education, impede/shut down scientific impact analysis, allow uncontrolled spending for political victories, decrease people's free time and wage, and dismantle restrictions and regulations. (I'm mixing my criticism of US and Canadian governments here.)
posted by halifix at 3:50 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by halifix at 3:50 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I know it's my go-to phrase for situations like this, but it's all I can really get down: Jesus wept.
posted by ob1quixote at 4:03 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 4:03 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
You can talk about changing lifestyles all you want, but the fact is that working those mines is profiting from evil, and does nothing to promote the lifestyle changes you claim to desire.
The thing is that oil is a commodity; by almost literal definition it is fungible no matter where it comes from and transportation is relatively cheap. When we consume a barrel of oil we are simultaneously destroying the wilderness and First Nations of Northern Alberta, enabling the Gulf states to reinstitute slavery and Sharia law, buying tanks for Putin to drive into the Ukraine and supporting a dozen other corrupt countries besides.
If someone stops working in the oilsands, there's a line around the block - 25% of households in Ft. McMurray have incomes over $250,000. If we in Alberta were to stop developing our oilsands unilaterally, there would be a small blip in prices and then everyone else would pick up the slack. The only way to slow the global system down is to control the demand - which can be done both by every person who makes choices about where to live, how to travel, what to buy - or by governments who force everyone to pay the real cost of oil consumption. (Or by nuclear fusion, and that may actually be more likely than the governments in the US, Canada and beyond instituting the price shocks needed to drop oil consumption to the point that the oilsands aren't viable.) Let he who consumes no oil - no plastic, no energy - cast the first stone.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:05 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]
The thing is that oil is a commodity; by almost literal definition it is fungible no matter where it comes from and transportation is relatively cheap. When we consume a barrel of oil we are simultaneously destroying the wilderness and First Nations of Northern Alberta, enabling the Gulf states to reinstitute slavery and Sharia law, buying tanks for Putin to drive into the Ukraine and supporting a dozen other corrupt countries besides.
If someone stops working in the oilsands, there's a line around the block - 25% of households in Ft. McMurray have incomes over $250,000. If we in Alberta were to stop developing our oilsands unilaterally, there would be a small blip in prices and then everyone else would pick up the slack. The only way to slow the global system down is to control the demand - which can be done both by every person who makes choices about where to live, how to travel, what to buy - or by governments who force everyone to pay the real cost of oil consumption. (Or by nuclear fusion, and that may actually be more likely than the governments in the US, Canada and beyond instituting the price shocks needed to drop oil consumption to the point that the oilsands aren't viable.) Let he who consumes no oil - no plastic, no energy - cast the first stone.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:05 PM on November 14, 2014 [6 favorites]
Guys, we're living in Dune and these are the sand worms.
posted by telstar at 4:11 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by telstar at 4:11 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Every time I ride my bike past the gas station between my place and the BART and see that gas is going for under three dollars a gallon, I think, "well, we're done." Survival of the human species depended on us not figuring out how to cheaply get oil out of tar sands, and we've figured out how to get oil out of tar sands, and we're done.
I don't know how to drive. I live about a half mile from a BART station, on a one-block street that has been described in multiple newspaper articles as "the worst block in Oakland." Open-air drug deals happen around the clock here, and that activity unfortunately attracts members of Oakland's most dangerous gang. And as far as I can tell, this place is literally — and I mean literally literally, not figuratively literally — the only place that I can afford that's within 70 miles of my workplace and also has decent access to transit.
I try to work from home as much as possible, which means working from a coffee shop, because too many days spent literally (rather than figuratively) from home cause me to lose my mind. And, well, I don't have much of a mind to lose — at this point, you could probably replace me with a robot designed to a) twitch and b) shout decontextualized Marx quotes, and no one would notice for weeks. But the thing is, I find it easier to work in uncrowded, unfashionable coffeeshops than in the crowded, high-end coffee boutiques the Bay Area is known for. So I do drink a lot of Starbucks, Robots Jr. has got me there.
Well but so anyway my point is that it is incredibly hard work in America (and Canada!) to not live in the middle of nowhere and drive everywhere. I can only just barely do it, and, well, I suspect I'm going to break down and learn how to drive real soon now.
The reason why it is so hard to not drive is , as we all know, that the regulatory environment encourages everyone to drive and sharply punishes non-drivers. Dense housing near transit is illegal to build, housing without parking is illegal to build, and everything that is not a single-family houses with ample parking built in previously unbuilt land is, when not illegal, at least extremely difficult to build. Gas taxes are low, general fund money goes to maintaining roads for cars, and lending for sprawling suburban developments is easy to get.
Another way the regulatory environment encourages driving is by making it legal to extract oil from tar sands.
Canada is not, unfortunately, going to fix this unfortunate regulatory quirk anytime soon, barring a revolution. As such, we — Americans and Canadians — have to diligently oppose every single project that can contribute to the profitability of Albertan tar sands extractors. We have to fight an obnoxious guerrilla war against every single pipeline, every single train, using every legal tool available to inflict, insofar as we can, misery upon Robots Jr's employers, over and over and over again until it is unprofitable for them to continue.
And we have to win. More than that, we have to fuck them up. We have to fuck them up with intent to fuck them up. We have to fuck them up so badly that they'll stand as an example to anyone else stupid and venal enough to expend capital cracking tar sands.
And we've got to make working the sands a shameful thing, like working as a scab during a strike.
We're not going to be able to, of course, but, hell, being a human means fighting hopeless fights.
It's easy to see the set of systematic forces that shove every American and Canadian toward driving everywhere, and shove everyone from the Maritimes toward working in a hell on Earth in Alberta, and say "well, you know, these individuals have good reasons to respond to the systematic commands to do these things, and so you can't blame anyone, and so we must throw up our hands in puzzlement over what is to be done." Here's what's to be done: we have to change those systematic forces. We have to put our individual weight into tipping the system over into encouraging us to ride bikes and ride buses and ride trains and live in cities and do literally anything other than working on the tar sands. We have to make working the tar sands an individually stupid decision, instead of an individually rational one. We have to, somehow, make owning and driving a car something only a stupid person would do, instead of something that makes sense.
We're not going to be able to, of course. But we have to.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:48 PM on November 14, 2014 [18 favorites]
I don't know how to drive. I live about a half mile from a BART station, on a one-block street that has been described in multiple newspaper articles as "the worst block in Oakland." Open-air drug deals happen around the clock here, and that activity unfortunately attracts members of Oakland's most dangerous gang. And as far as I can tell, this place is literally — and I mean literally literally, not figuratively literally — the only place that I can afford that's within 70 miles of my workplace and also has decent access to transit.
I try to work from home as much as possible, which means working from a coffee shop, because too many days spent literally (rather than figuratively) from home cause me to lose my mind. And, well, I don't have much of a mind to lose — at this point, you could probably replace me with a robot designed to a) twitch and b) shout decontextualized Marx quotes, and no one would notice for weeks. But the thing is, I find it easier to work in uncrowded, unfashionable coffeeshops than in the crowded, high-end coffee boutiques the Bay Area is known for. So I do drink a lot of Starbucks, Robots Jr. has got me there.
Well but so anyway my point is that it is incredibly hard work in America (and Canada!) to not live in the middle of nowhere and drive everywhere. I can only just barely do it, and, well, I suspect I'm going to break down and learn how to drive real soon now.
The reason why it is so hard to not drive is , as we all know, that the regulatory environment encourages everyone to drive and sharply punishes non-drivers. Dense housing near transit is illegal to build, housing without parking is illegal to build, and everything that is not a single-family houses with ample parking built in previously unbuilt land is, when not illegal, at least extremely difficult to build. Gas taxes are low, general fund money goes to maintaining roads for cars, and lending for sprawling suburban developments is easy to get.
Another way the regulatory environment encourages driving is by making it legal to extract oil from tar sands.
Canada is not, unfortunately, going to fix this unfortunate regulatory quirk anytime soon, barring a revolution. As such, we — Americans and Canadians — have to diligently oppose every single project that can contribute to the profitability of Albertan tar sands extractors. We have to fight an obnoxious guerrilla war against every single pipeline, every single train, using every legal tool available to inflict, insofar as we can, misery upon Robots Jr's employers, over and over and over again until it is unprofitable for them to continue.
And we have to win. More than that, we have to fuck them up. We have to fuck them up with intent to fuck them up. We have to fuck them up so badly that they'll stand as an example to anyone else stupid and venal enough to expend capital cracking tar sands.
And we've got to make working the sands a shameful thing, like working as a scab during a strike.
We're not going to be able to, of course, but, hell, being a human means fighting hopeless fights.
It's easy to see the set of systematic forces that shove every American and Canadian toward driving everywhere, and shove everyone from the Maritimes toward working in a hell on Earth in Alberta, and say "well, you know, these individuals have good reasons to respond to the systematic commands to do these things, and so you can't blame anyone, and so we must throw up our hands in puzzlement over what is to be done." Here's what's to be done: we have to change those systematic forces. We have to put our individual weight into tipping the system over into encouraging us to ride bikes and ride buses and ride trains and live in cities and do literally anything other than working on the tar sands. We have to make working the tar sands an individually stupid decision, instead of an individually rational one. We have to, somehow, make owning and driving a car something only a stupid person would do, instead of something that makes sense.
We're not going to be able to, of course. But we have to.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:48 PM on November 14, 2014 [18 favorites]
What gets buried in these arguments is the *water* that is being used up/wasted/trashed for ever (or a Very Long Time). That water is a non-renewable resource, just as oil is. We can live a long time without oil, but not very long without potable water.
Many places in North America are facing severe drought, and I hope, in a perverse way, that will stop some of the fracking and other industrial wasting of water in the western US. Hope is not a plan though, so mostly I just fume.
posted by dbmcd at 4:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Many places in North America are facing severe drought, and I hope, in a perverse way, that will stop some of the fracking and other industrial wasting of water in the western US. Hope is not a plan though, so mostly I just fume.
posted by dbmcd at 4:57 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
What it’s like to live with the Keystone Pipeline
posted by homunculus at 5:33 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by homunculus at 5:33 PM on November 14, 2014
Why The U.S.-China Climate Deal Makes Keystone XL Pipeline An Even Worse Idea
posted by homunculus at 5:34 PM on November 14, 2014
posted by homunculus at 5:34 PM on November 14, 2014
No Robots, I really understand where your son is coming from. Most of the world relies on oil to some extent, so we are all complicit. This makes it very easy to say that others should change before we do.
And he is so right that perverse subsidies contribute to sprawl and fossil fuel consumption.
But- and I can't be kind both kind and honest about this- working as an engineer in the tar sands at this point is deeply shameful. Destroying northern Alberta, poisoning the Cree and Dene peoples, and fucking up our atmosphere for a quick buck is, if I may say so, part of the "true problem." It's a huge part.
And so I beg your son: please stop. Stop hurting us. Stop flooding Bangladesh, stop 1,000 years of potentially runaway warming with completely unforeseen and potentially terrfying consequences. On some level he must know the damage he does, which is why he's so quick to say that consumers are the problem- that he's just meeting the demand. But two wrongs don't make a right and the science is in.
It doesn't "make sense" for us to build this pipleline. It is selfish and insane and short-sighted. Maybe the rich will just move to the high ground. Maybe you and your son and your progeny will be fine- a lot of other people will not be.
This is a moral issue on the scale of slavery, and we need to stop pretending that it's ok to fuck up other peoples' climate. Does that sound extreme? It's not. Watch this and tell me I'm being hyperbolic.
Slavery didn't stop because it stopped making money; abolitionists made it shameful to own other people. In a couple of decades, spewing CO2 in a hotter world will have the same stigma: which side of history will you be on?
But I promise that it's not too late for him, or for us. We can produce all that we need from renewables. We are not waiting for the technology: it exists today! All we need to do is to use it.
tl;dr: climate change is happening, digging up tar sands is shameful: renewables now.
posted by the thing about it at 5:49 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
And he is so right that perverse subsidies contribute to sprawl and fossil fuel consumption.
But- and I can't be kind both kind and honest about this- working as an engineer in the tar sands at this point is deeply shameful. Destroying northern Alberta, poisoning the Cree and Dene peoples, and fucking up our atmosphere for a quick buck is, if I may say so, part of the "true problem." It's a huge part.
And so I beg your son: please stop. Stop hurting us. Stop flooding Bangladesh, stop 1,000 years of potentially runaway warming with completely unforeseen and potentially terrfying consequences. On some level he must know the damage he does, which is why he's so quick to say that consumers are the problem- that he's just meeting the demand. But two wrongs don't make a right and the science is in.
It doesn't "make sense" for us to build this pipleline. It is selfish and insane and short-sighted. Maybe the rich will just move to the high ground. Maybe you and your son and your progeny will be fine- a lot of other people will not be.
This is a moral issue on the scale of slavery, and we need to stop pretending that it's ok to fuck up other peoples' climate. Does that sound extreme? It's not. Watch this and tell me I'm being hyperbolic.
Slavery didn't stop because it stopped making money; abolitionists made it shameful to own other people. In a couple of decades, spewing CO2 in a hotter world will have the same stigma: which side of history will you be on?
But I promise that it's not too late for him, or for us. We can produce all that we need from renewables. We are not waiting for the technology: it exists today! All we need to do is to use it.
tl;dr: climate change is happening, digging up tar sands is shameful: renewables now.
posted by the thing about it at 5:49 PM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Part of the whole mess that is my home province that gets overlooked, I think, is the "bad old days" before the current oil boom. Twenty years ago the province went through long and painful cuts because there was no money, and for good or ill the political rhetoric that we needed the oil industry to save us survived and became "common sense" for the people of my generation who grew up with it (and haven't really had that notion challenged, as we have had the same party in power for the last four decades or so, repeating that line). It has become the truth for us that we need these jobs and we need to extract the money while we can (and sock it away in the criminally underfunded Heritage fund) because one day the music will stop and the temporary workers will go home, and we'll need to pick up the pieces again.
I think convincing the voters of Alberta to hold their government to account, really, and demand real serious regulation of the oil industry will need more than a few ad campaigns, it will require a radical change in Alberta culture.
posted by selenized at 7:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think convincing the voters of Alberta to hold their government to account, really, and demand real serious regulation of the oil industry will need more than a few ad campaigns, it will require a radical change in Alberta culture.
posted by selenized at 7:52 PM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
You Can't Tip a Buick: " Well but so anyway my point is that it is incredibly hard work in America (and Canada!) to not live in the middle of nowhere and drive everywhere. I can only just barely do it, and, well, I suspect I'm going to break down and learn how to drive real soon now.
The reason why it is so hard to not drive is , as we all know, that the regulatory environment encourages everyone to drive and sharply punishes non-drivers. Dense housing near transit is illegal to build, housing without parking is illegal to build, and everything that is not a single-family houses with ample parking built in previously unbuilt land is, when not illegal, at least extremely difficult to build. Gas taxes are low, general fund money goes to maintaining roads for cars, and lending for sprawling suburban developments is easy to get."
This is one of the reasons, I suspect, why Seattle voters just voted by a 24% margin to tax ourselves for more buses. Our city council (though I suspect the upcoming district-based elections will undo some of this) is even pushing local residents to suck-it-up-and-deal when it comes to upzoning around light rail stations and transit centers. Heck, part of the reason why I think the local vote passed in Seattle (but not in the county) is because it gives the Seattle representatives in the state legislature the ability to go back and say "no, sorry, the largest city in the state is not going to foot the bill for your massive road projects in exchange for a pittance of a chance of going to the ballot for transit."
I'm with you, though. I drive as little as I can get away with it since my management won't let me work from home. I came from a state where driving is overwhelmingly the norm so I come almost "pre-installed" with a driver license and it was a thrill to not have to drive. Fireoyster, Jr., however, has no such notions. When I asked if he wanted to learn since he's now 15.5 years old, his response was "why? I have an ORCA card and all of my friends are online." Ms. Fireoyster has picked up driving more lately mostly because it is cold as all heck here and she's looking for the novelty of driving versus busing everywhere like we usually do.
In the end, we have to learn to make the deliberate choice of what is both good for one and balanced against good for the rest of us. Only a small percentage of people actually do this. I look at my coworkers who buy half-million dollar, very nice, well-appointed houses on the edge of the Growth Management Area and I cringe but those are their choices to make. On the other hand, nothing says that I have to vote to help sustain that lifestyle, either at the ballot box or with my spending. Heck, I deliberately chose a tiny house in a not-so-trendy area of Seattle both for the transit and because Seattle City Light is almost entirely hydro power.
Regardless of who is the problem—the pusher or the addict—one side of the equation can try to wean itself off, so that's what I'll do.
posted by fireoyster at 4:18 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
The reason why it is so hard to not drive is , as we all know, that the regulatory environment encourages everyone to drive and sharply punishes non-drivers. Dense housing near transit is illegal to build, housing without parking is illegal to build, and everything that is not a single-family houses with ample parking built in previously unbuilt land is, when not illegal, at least extremely difficult to build. Gas taxes are low, general fund money goes to maintaining roads for cars, and lending for sprawling suburban developments is easy to get."
This is one of the reasons, I suspect, why Seattle voters just voted by a 24% margin to tax ourselves for more buses. Our city council (though I suspect the upcoming district-based elections will undo some of this) is even pushing local residents to suck-it-up-and-deal when it comes to upzoning around light rail stations and transit centers. Heck, part of the reason why I think the local vote passed in Seattle (but not in the county) is because it gives the Seattle representatives in the state legislature the ability to go back and say "no, sorry, the largest city in the state is not going to foot the bill for your massive road projects in exchange for a pittance of a chance of going to the ballot for transit."
I'm with you, though. I drive as little as I can get away with it since my management won't let me work from home. I came from a state where driving is overwhelmingly the norm so I come almost "pre-installed" with a driver license and it was a thrill to not have to drive. Fireoyster, Jr., however, has no such notions. When I asked if he wanted to learn since he's now 15.5 years old, his response was "why? I have an ORCA card and all of my friends are online." Ms. Fireoyster has picked up driving more lately mostly because it is cold as all heck here and she's looking for the novelty of driving versus busing everywhere like we usually do.
In the end, we have to learn to make the deliberate choice of what is both good for one and balanced against good for the rest of us. Only a small percentage of people actually do this. I look at my coworkers who buy half-million dollar, very nice, well-appointed houses on the edge of the Growth Management Area and I cringe but those are their choices to make. On the other hand, nothing says that I have to vote to help sustain that lifestyle, either at the ballot box or with my spending. Heck, I deliberately chose a tiny house in a not-so-trendy area of Seattle both for the transit and because Seattle City Light is almost entirely hydro power.
Regardless of who is the problem—the pusher or the addict—one side of the equation can try to wean itself off, so that's what I'll do.
posted by fireoyster at 4:18 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Syncrude. How do they manage to dishonor both of the words "sin" and "crude?"
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:20 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:20 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
If someone stops working in the oilsands, there's a line around the block - 25% of households in Ft. McMurray have incomes over $250,000. If we in Alberta were to stop developing our oilsands unilaterally, there would be a small blip in prices and then everyone else would pick up the slack.
This is that "If we didn't do it, somebody else would" argument. It does not absolve you of responsibility for the horrible consequences of your actions, even if you're filling some demand. You're the ones directly doing the damage, and you're doing it for money. Anyone can use Google Maps to look at Fort McKay or Fort McMurray and see that the land is being destroyed. Anyone can read articles such as the FPP one and learn of the terrible price that the First People are paying just for living on land that happens to be on or near these tar sands. They are paying the price. You are taking a profit. It's as wrong as it can be. You should stop doing it, even if somebody else takes your place. Whoever does it is doing evil. If you don't want to be blamed, don't do the evil.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:44 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is that "If we didn't do it, somebody else would" argument. It does not absolve you of responsibility for the horrible consequences of your actions, even if you're filling some demand. You're the ones directly doing the damage, and you're doing it for money. Anyone can use Google Maps to look at Fort McKay or Fort McMurray and see that the land is being destroyed. Anyone can read articles such as the FPP one and learn of the terrible price that the First People are paying just for living on land that happens to be on or near these tar sands. They are paying the price. You are taking a profit. It's as wrong as it can be. You should stop doing it, even if somebody else takes your place. Whoever does it is doing evil. If you don't want to be blamed, don't do the evil.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:44 AM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
So I've never been to the oil sands but I have lived on three sides of them. My mind is racing with all that I want to write but I know I won't do it justice, so here goes.
First job out of college was in a Dene community north of Alberta. I worked with a lady from Fort Chip. The Cancer spikes are real. Then I moved back east to Newfoundland where people in rural communities literally "commute" by jet to Fort Mac for these strange shifts. Three weeks on, two weeks off. Three months on, one month off. Whatever. Wives stay at home with their kids and the money keeps these communities alive. Even as populations decrease in towns as small as 2,000 people, new homes are going up.
I worked in newspapers -an industry that is dying a slow death. And we did the "small home" thing for a while which you've probably read about on Buzzfeed. It's overrated.
Finally after five years of slowly building debt, just barely scraping by with two kids and no money for anything beyond the bare essentials, my wife found work in her field (enviro science) in Calgary. We've been here two months. It's amazing. We can afford to live. We can save a bit of money like we're told we should do. We can get take out once a week now. We can expose our kids to new experiences- libraries, the zoo, dinosaur bones, mountains.
I've been following subreddits like r/lostgeneration and r/basicincome. I know people just want to work, take part in society, and provide for themselves and their children. The problem, folks, is capitalism.
Those are mostly unionized jobs in the tarsands. And then you've got the folks who got science degrees and are actually able to pay down their student loans because they found lab jobs trying to squeeze those last few drops of oil from the sand. It's all the stuff disenfranchised Americans have been asking for.
Does that make it ok? Absolutely not. But it's no better or worse than the average North American lifestyle. Comparing Robot Jr. to a slaveholder is uncalled for. There are literally oil barons in Saudi Arabia with slaves and we've all bought their gas. We are all complicit thanks to capitalism. Until we have that discussion, targeting the tarsands alone is probably an unhelpful distraction from the system that logically requires us to mine the tarsands.
posted by Brodiggitty at 9:23 AM on November 15, 2014 [9 favorites]
First job out of college was in a Dene community north of Alberta. I worked with a lady from Fort Chip. The Cancer spikes are real. Then I moved back east to Newfoundland where people in rural communities literally "commute" by jet to Fort Mac for these strange shifts. Three weeks on, two weeks off. Three months on, one month off. Whatever. Wives stay at home with their kids and the money keeps these communities alive. Even as populations decrease in towns as small as 2,000 people, new homes are going up.
I worked in newspapers -an industry that is dying a slow death. And we did the "small home" thing for a while which you've probably read about on Buzzfeed. It's overrated.
Finally after five years of slowly building debt, just barely scraping by with two kids and no money for anything beyond the bare essentials, my wife found work in her field (enviro science) in Calgary. We've been here two months. It's amazing. We can afford to live. We can save a bit of money like we're told we should do. We can get take out once a week now. We can expose our kids to new experiences- libraries, the zoo, dinosaur bones, mountains.
I've been following subreddits like r/lostgeneration and r/basicincome. I know people just want to work, take part in society, and provide for themselves and their children. The problem, folks, is capitalism.
Those are mostly unionized jobs in the tarsands. And then you've got the folks who got science degrees and are actually able to pay down their student loans because they found lab jobs trying to squeeze those last few drops of oil from the sand. It's all the stuff disenfranchised Americans have been asking for.
Does that make it ok? Absolutely not. But it's no better or worse than the average North American lifestyle. Comparing Robot Jr. to a slaveholder is uncalled for. There are literally oil barons in Saudi Arabia with slaves and we've all bought their gas. We are all complicit thanks to capitalism. Until we have that discussion, targeting the tarsands alone is probably an unhelpful distraction from the system that logically requires us to mine the tarsands.
posted by Brodiggitty at 9:23 AM on November 15, 2014 [9 favorites]
yeah, questions of whether an individual person is or is not individually pure are boring, because we are all just completely impure and dirty and nasty. Like, the grime that's on every last one of us is made of tar sand gunk mixed with the blood of Foxconn workers. And no amount of good living can get that shit off.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:35 AM on November 15, 2014
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:35 AM on November 15, 2014
Sure, we're all culpable to the extent that we consume stuff. But we're not all equally culpable. The guys actually ripping the stuff out of the ground and turning fresh water into poison are responsible for that happening, to a much greater degree than are the people who live where they can afford to live and find work, let alone those who make conscious decisions to reduce their impact on the planet. That those ground-rippers and water-polluters get paid six figures for doing it just makes their actions more reprehensible.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:31 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:31 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Certainly, but it's a rational individual decision they're making. Our job is to, somehow, make that decision irrational. Shame is a component, but it certainly can't be the only one, especially when the rhetoric that's deployed implies that some people are clean.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:53 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:53 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm sorry but I can't get mad at someone working to put food on the table. I know lots of folks from back east in their 50s who put in three or four years in Fort Mac to top up their retirement funds (which in many cases were non-existent). They go back to rural settings where they grow a lot of their own food, or hunt and fish to top up their freezers.
Keep in mind that with seven billion people on earth, we are way over the planet's carrying capacity. If everyone turned to hunting and foraging tomorrow, the planet would be in even worse shape than it is now. We need industrial farming (which requires nitrogen and therefore petroleum) to head off mass famine.
Again. This is not an apology for the tar sands. But I'll return again to our shared culpability in this mess, and I'll repeat that the tar sands are an easy target for our green guilt. Getting mad at that admittedly horrible mess is easier than looking at the really big root problems (IMHO overpopulation and capitalism). I could launch an equally damning campaign against a number of industries including factory farming or Silicon Valley. All would also ignore the big picture.
posted by Brodiggitty at 6:26 PM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
Keep in mind that with seven billion people on earth, we are way over the planet's carrying capacity. If everyone turned to hunting and foraging tomorrow, the planet would be in even worse shape than it is now. We need industrial farming (which requires nitrogen and therefore petroleum) to head off mass famine.
Again. This is not an apology for the tar sands. But I'll return again to our shared culpability in this mess, and I'll repeat that the tar sands are an easy target for our green guilt. Getting mad at that admittedly horrible mess is easier than looking at the really big root problems (IMHO overpopulation and capitalism). I could launch an equally damning campaign against a number of industries including factory farming or Silicon Valley. All would also ignore the big picture.
posted by Brodiggitty at 6:26 PM on November 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
This is not an apology for the tar sands.
You could have fooled me. Look, your retirees traveled to a place where other people have to live, and participated in the destruction and poisoning of that place and those people, Then they returned to their homeland, where they get to hunt in undestroyed land and fish in un-poisoned water -- things that those other people would like to do too, Sucks for them that they can't anymore, huh? And they don't even get to retire with a fat nest egg.
We do not need tar-sands oil. If we cared enough, we'd invest massively in renewable energy and electric vehicles, and the existing supply of light crude would last a long time. The methods we are using to produce energy and food are apparently cheap but ruinously expensive in reality. Our grandchildren are going to hate what we leave them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:15 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
You could have fooled me. Look, your retirees traveled to a place where other people have to live, and participated in the destruction and poisoning of that place and those people, Then they returned to their homeland, where they get to hunt in undestroyed land and fish in un-poisoned water -- things that those other people would like to do too, Sucks for them that they can't anymore, huh? And they don't even get to retire with a fat nest egg.
We do not need tar-sands oil. If we cared enough, we'd invest massively in renewable energy and electric vehicles, and the existing supply of light crude would last a long time. The methods we are using to produce energy and food are apparently cheap but ruinously expensive in reality. Our grandchildren are going to hate what we leave them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:15 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
The guys actually ripping the stuff out of the ground and turning fresh water into poison are responsible for that happening, to a much greater degree than are the people who live where they can afford to live and find work, let alone those who make conscious decisions to reduce their impact on the planet.
My point is that an east coaster working in Fort Mac can be all three of these at once. Anyone can be all three of these at once and most of us are without thinking about the environmental down side of how we live our lives. It's easier to point at someone else and assign the blame to them.
I hope they shut it all down tomorrow. Low oil prices may make that a reality soon.
posted by Brodiggitty at 6:57 AM on November 16, 2014
My point is that an east coaster working in Fort Mac can be all three of these at once. Anyone can be all three of these at once and most of us are without thinking about the environmental down side of how we live our lives. It's easier to point at someone else and assign the blame to them.
I hope they shut it all down tomorrow. Low oil prices may make that a reality soon.
posted by Brodiggitty at 6:57 AM on November 16, 2014
Anyone can be all three of these at once and most of us are without thinking about the environmental down side of how we live our lives.
No, we cannot, without making a conscious decision to work at a tar-sands mine or the like. I don't do that. The vast majority of people do not do it. However much our consumption patterns may contribute to the demand for that oil, we are not profiting directly from the destruction its production causes. Those who are so profiting are directly responsible, and no amount of spreading the blame to people who are mostly unaware that it's even happening is going to lessen that responsibility.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
No, we cannot, without making a conscious decision to work at a tar-sands mine or the like. I don't do that. The vast majority of people do not do it. However much our consumption patterns may contribute to the demand for that oil, we are not profiting directly from the destruction its production causes. Those who are so profiting are directly responsible, and no amount of spreading the blame to people who are mostly unaware that it's even happening is going to lessen that responsibility.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
This thread has a lot of "it's ok to do something wrong if someone else does it too" comments that I am surprised to find here. The tar sands are unnecessary and unusually polluting. Making big bucks off of someone else's suffering is wrong, even if 100,000 people are also doing it.
I'm not claiming to be pure and, in any case, my purity is totally irrelevant. I also live in a fossil-fueled world.
But climate is changing, that is terrifying, and those who are directly responsible for that change are, in fact, responsible for the consequences of their choices. Did anyone else read the article? It's horrific.
There is a better way. Renewable energy technology exists now, as do public transit, better-built cities, and systems for carbon pricing. We need welders to build wind farms, engineers to design solar cells, and carpenters, pipefitters, mechanics, and people with business acumen to design new energy industries. Leave the tar sands behind and come join us.
posted by the thing about it at 11:27 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm not claiming to be pure and, in any case, my purity is totally irrelevant. I also live in a fossil-fueled world.
But climate is changing, that is terrifying, and those who are directly responsible for that change are, in fact, responsible for the consequences of their choices. Did anyone else read the article? It's horrific.
There is a better way. Renewable energy technology exists now, as do public transit, better-built cities, and systems for carbon pricing. We need welders to build wind farms, engineers to design solar cells, and carpenters, pipefitters, mechanics, and people with business acumen to design new energy industries. Leave the tar sands behind and come join us.
posted by the thing about it at 11:27 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
"I'm sorry but I can't get mad at someone working to put food on the table."
I can get mad, which is why I'm off now to the protest on Burnaby Mountain to stop Kinder Morgan employees from "putting food on the table" and a hole in the Mountain.
Here's hoping I don't get arrested- I have plans tonight!
posted by the thing about it at 1:27 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
I can get mad, which is why I'm off now to the protest on Burnaby Mountain to stop Kinder Morgan employees from "putting food on the table" and a hole in the Mountain.
Here's hoping I don't get arrested- I have plans tonight!
posted by the thing about it at 1:27 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
South Dakota Sioux tribe calls Keystone XL pipeline approval 'act of war'
posted by homunculus at 6:43 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by homunculus at 6:43 PM on November 17, 2014
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posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:10 AM on November 14, 2014