Collective effort needed to solve oilsands issues, author says

By Jeremy Appel on September 27, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Medicine Hat Public Library hosted Calgary-based author and journalist Chris Turner on Wednesday to kick off its celebration of Alberta Culture Days.

Turner was at the library to discuss his most recent book, “The Patch,” which deals with the history and politics of the oilsands, reading passages from the book and taking questions from the audience.

“When we talk about what we do about this or that pipeline, what are we going to do about the oilsands, what are we going to do about greenhouse gas emissions, we have to begin by acknowledging as citizens of this country we collectively built this,” said Turner.

“We’re really going to have to collectively figure out what to do about it.”

He spoke of the dilemma “about what is to happen with the fact that we built this enormous engineering enterprise in northern Alberta to pull three million barrels of oil out of the ground a day, at a time when suddenly both the product itself and the way it’s pulled out of the ground is considered problematic, not just in Canada but around the world.”

Turner said there are about 90 million barrels of oil taken from the ground a day.

In the book, he seeks to answer the question of how the three million barrels from Fort McMurray have became a global symbol of environmentalists’ concerns.

“The idea that the battle is won or lost globally by what we do about the oilsands is simply not supported by the facts,” Turner said.

The Alberta NDP’s decision to phase out coal power while pursuing carbon taxation and pipeline expansion was a more productive approach, he argued.

Pipeline expansion was a necessary precondition to attract the support of oil companies for carbon taxation and a cap on oilsands emissions, said Turner.

“You could not have gotten oilsands executives to stand on the stage with you if there was no growth, because it would have been devastating for them financially,” he said, referring to the announcement of the provincial government’s Climate Leadership Plan.

The ruling federal Liberals pursued a similar path, imposing a nation-wide carbon tax and committing to the Paris agreement while pursuing oilsands expansion, which Turner maintains is the most prudent course.

“Even if we’re not currently on the trajectory of hitting the Paris target, we’re closer than we’d be with no plan,” he said.

“The alternative to what the federal government is doing right now is nothing.”

Turner will also be speaking today at the Medicine Hat College library at 10 a.m.

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