Request to shut down oil industry is misguided
By Letter to the Editor on May 16, 2020.
Seems some faculty and universities besides Lethbridge have departed from reality. How misinformed that group of staff who submitted to an equally misinformed prime minister a request for him to shut down Alberta’s oil industry. Universities live on government grants and in Alberta, over the years, energy royalties have been the greatest source of those revenues. In fact, it was oil money that built the University of Lethbridge, way back when. How else could a city of 60,000 even dream of a university? In better times, energy revenues funded all your extra infrastructure and salaries.
So you want to put the final stab into Alberta’s energy industries already hollowed out by our PM and his intervention to block a pipeline already approved by the National Energy Board. Kinder Morgan would have been built by private capital and running for better off-shore prices. Your hypocrisy is stunning.
Where do you think aviation fuels come from? Or bunker fuel for various ocean liners, making trade possible? What about diesel fuel for semis, farming, construction, hydraulics? Without those trucks and drivers, for example, during this pandemic, the North American food chain would have floundered.
Want a quick trip to starvation and a Third World standard of living? Shut down oil, absolutely essential to any kind of global recovery. We will need it for decades. Canada is quite pristine, only bettered by Iceland and Switzerland.
What about all the petroleum derivatives s that surround you? Plastics in everything – meds and cosmetics, the roof over your head and the asphalt roads you all drive on. How can you be so gullible and way misinformed? A black eye for U of L.
You are making it easier for your president. Staff cuts are surely ahead and your group should top the list for first out the door. At the same institution, are you learning anything, or want to, from science-based and management faculties?
I am surprised by some of the names on your list. Happy job hunting.
John Calpas
Lethbridge
11-10
R U referring to the pipeline he bought? Seems like you have forgotten that small fact.
Yes John the hypocrisy is stunning with some of these Alberta fossil fuel “Haters.”
Ralph Klein had it partly right… let those (Alberta fossil fuel haters) freeze in the dark in their big homes and their empty pickup trucks. Mark my words, one day they will regret.
The oil and gas industry might not shut down completely but it certainly will be changing. And, today, with the news of Air Canada laying of 20,000 employees, it may take years for the airline industry to get back to what it was, if ever. We are, also, noticing, globally, the glaring, and significant decrease in pollution. There is much to learn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and hopefully, lessons, will, be learned with regard to climate change.
Here is a hint of may be what is to come with the oil and gas sector:
“Beyond the fog of the pandemic, there is a new energy future in sight. Let’s go build it.”
http://www.theglobandmail.com/opinion/article-beyond-the-fog-of-the-pandemic-there-is-a-new-energy-future-in-sight/
The author is “Kevin Krausert, president and CEO of Beaver Drilling, co-founder of the Avatar Program, and the drilling rig executive chair of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors.”
Here’s more on what the rest of the world is up to regarding the oil and gas sector:
“OPINION I Still waiting for Alberta to get the memo on climate-conscious investing. Norway’s pension fund issues reminder that global financial markets continue to take climate risk seriously.”
http://www.cbcnews.ca/canada/calgary/alberta-oilsands-norway-pension-fund-divestment-1.5571427
Subtitle quote: “The province isn’t reading the room.”
Just more verification that the Kenney UCP is not right for Alberta.Some of us who did not vote for the UCP knew when they won that it was going to be bad, but not how bad. We’re sure finding out.
And yet, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was built on oil, and still produces 1.8 million barrels a day.
Yes, and they are using that wealth to build their future.
Not so Alberta where Cons continue to believe throwing hissy fits will make climate concerns disappear.
Kevin is talking about “blue” and “green” hydrogen. Here is some more on that.
https://energypost.eu/the-clean-hydrogen-revolution-how-by-whom-when/
Better yet! Go “nuclear” hydrogen.
http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Publications/Nuclear%20oil%20sand.htm
Southern Alberta – sounds interesting but behind a pay wall.
U.N. Agenda 21 in full play as of the latest “PANDEMIC”
“True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’d. What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d; Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.”