Chasing oil and coal not a viable strategy
By Lethbridge Herald on June 19, 2025.
Editor,
This is an open letter to all members of the Alberta provincial government.
I realize that an anti-pipeline stance in the prairies is controversial at best, but as I check air quality advisories and limit my toddler’s outdoor time to protect his health, I see the problems with that perspective all around me.
I am begging you to go against years of bending the knee to pipeline companies and to stop chasing the 2003-2004 oil high Alberta longs for. The age of oil and tar sands is over, and no amount of insistence that our oil is somehow cleaner than other countries’ production is going to wash away the truth.
Bowing to big oil is a terrible use of my tax dollars. The subsidies are throwing good money after bad.Â
Renewable energy is a sustainable and growing industry, and even nuclear power is safer and more sustainable than ever before. Meanwhile, the costs and damages of the climate crisis worsen by the week. Are we factoring that into our economic outlooks? It really doesn’t seem like it.
Meanwhile, my own premier is approving a proposal to mine for coal in the east slopes, a precious area of wilderness that also connects to an extremely important headwater source.Â
The selenium contamination alone endangers hundreds of thousands of Albertans, let alone the impact on the agricultural sector.Â
From a sheer conservative perspective, the waste of funding these pipelines and strangling renewables as the rest of the world moves away from oil and gas is outrageous. From an environmental perspective, it’s an atrocity.
I’m nobody special, just a mom in Alberta, but I’m begging you to look around you and change your stance on pipelines. My kid can’t breathe.
Michelle Browne
Lethbridge
13-12
Well said Michelle. If they had been charging proper royalties and corporate taxes on the oil industry like Norway and Alaska are doing there would be no need for more pipelines as oilmen point out.
The 78% taxes the industry is paying in Norway doesn’t concern them and has created a $1.4 trillion savings for the Norwegian children’s future. We are in a financial disaster that can’t be fixed.
I agree with you. By the looks of it, you definitely had been around true Conservatives, who taught you well. When I see the UCP, I see similarities to Ralph Klein, who was very bad. Peter Lougheed was actually ashamed to appear with Ralph Klein in public, because he knew he was that bad. I also see similarities to the Social Credit Party, who Peter Lougheed fought so hard to defeat, and the Reform Party, whom Peter Lougheed also disliked. Fed Up Conservative is fitting, because what is so Conservative about the UCP?
I have been an asthma suffer since I was 16 and I’m 82 and numerous doctors over the years have pointed out the Alberta has the highest number per capita of children with asthma in North America because of our air pollution.
When Dr. David Swann dared to point it out what the oil industry and power industry were doing to our health Klein had him fired. The public outrage made Klein offer him his job back and he refused to take it and became leader of the liberal opposition party instead.
I’m originally from a very large farm in Alberta. When I would go back there with relatives, the air was so much cleaner. In the previous decade, there were air quality warnings because of these coal fired power plants in Alberta. That can’t be good for people’s health. The selenium in the water from these open pit coal mines that the UCP are wanting to pursue, will also endanger people’s health. Peter Lougheed would be furious about the UCP and Danielle Smith trying to rescind his 1976 Coal Policy.
you will have us all freeze, in the dark, no less! just ask the usual who only understand black or white simplicity. in fact, you will surely hear from them here soon. hey, and not to worry, the smoke will go away as soon as those pesky fires go out. until then, consider hanging some meat on the clothesline to get smoked, naturally. kinda to say, if the fossil fuel industry give ya smoke, make smoked meat, right?
as for tax dollars, what else are they good for but to ensure big corp becomes bigger corp?
as for the air quality, do what big corp and their elected puppets would suggest: breathe less, and smarter…and, we will all soon get our recommended daily dose of selenium, like flouride, for FREE, through our tap water.
Well Michelle, you are special because Mom’s have a big job that is 24/7. Mom’s are vital!
Oil demand has not peaked and is not expected to peak for many years! Canada is the cleanest producer of oil. I do agree on the coal and believe we should be moving away from coal use, and there have been some interesting research in alternatives in producing steel.
Back to the oil and gas: both solar and wind energy have a much bigger carbon footprint than oil and gas! Batteries for them require several mined minerals, some using massive amounts of fresh water, and the waste left from the old wind and solar farms ends up being buried in the ground, including the massive blades.
Nuclear energy creates radioactive waste which lasts for hundreds, even thousands of years, but you can’t see dangerous radioactive emissions. How many times have their been nuclear waste released into Lake Ontario or the tritium releases, which are a radioactive isotope.
China refusing to collaborate with countries to reduce GHG emissions, and they emit over 34% of the world GHG’s! Canada only emits 1.6% that is one point six percent, and can do very little to impact change, at best if we shut down all industry, we could maybe lower our emissions to 1%.
China, Russia and India emit almost 60% of the world GHG’s! Do you see the focus on them to reduce emissions? NO!
Now why is the world condemning Canada when reducing emissions here will have little impact? There is so much more to this but no time to explain, but briefly it is about gaining control of countries for global change.
As far as fires go – worldwide since 1990, wildfires have decreased by 25%! They don’t tell you that, do they!