Re: Justin Trudeau says government won't be 'pipeline cheerleaders' like Tories
From
Getting real about the need to transport oil | MOORE | Columnists | Opinion | To
& written by Dr. Patrick Moore
A recent report issued by the Fraser Institute makes it clear
that transporting oil by pipelines is far safer than by railcars.
One need look no further than the tragic deaths and destruction
in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec and the fiery derailment of a train
carrying three million gallons of crude in West Virginia earlier
this year.
Yet irrational public opposition and timid politicians are
preventing the construction of vital pipeline infrastructure
across the North American continent while oil transport
by rail skyrockets.
Now we have the David Suzuki Foundation calling for an
end to the transport of oil altogether, because “there is no
safe way to transport it”. Of course the logical extension
of this is that there is no safe way to transport people,
therefore all transport of people should be banned.
But there is no sense in looking for logic as anti-pipeline
activists and special interests in rail transport conspire
to derail Canada’s national energy policy.
Even the obviously intelligent Energy East pipeline
proposal, which would replace Saudi, Venezuelan,
and European oil with Canadian oil, delivering billions
in reduced cost, is fiercely opposed in Quebec and
Ontario.
In British Columbia, the anti-oil campaign conveniently
ignores the fact that the province imports nearly $3 billion
worth of refined oil in pipelines annually, most of it from
Alberta, to keep the wheels turning. Then there is the
undeniable fact that civilization as we know it would
come to a screeching halt if the more than one billion
cars, motorbikes, trucks, buses, and planes ran out
of fuel tomorrow.
I have a proposal to separate the wheat from the chafe
in this bizarre conversation. Let’s do the project in
Quebec and British Columbia, Francophone and
Anglophone, East and West.
Every person pulling up to a filling station with a
motorized vehicle will be asked if they support the
transport of fuel from wells and refineries to the
filling station.
If they answer in the affirmative they will be provided
with fuel. If they answer in the negative they will be
refused service. This will help to “reduce the amount
of oil being transported”, as demanded by the David
Suzuki Foundation last week.
It is only fair that the people who oppose oil transport
should be the first to stop using it. And this strategy
would certainly flush out the hypocrites who continue
to use oil while claiming to oppose it.
After three months there would be a public release of
the numbers of people who answered yes versus no.
It can be predicted with fair certainty that this is where
a real 97% consensus would be revealed for all to see,
unlike the fabricated claim that 97% of climate scientists
believe in catastrophic, human-caused climate change.
- A co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace,
Dr. Patrick Moore is now Chair for Ecology, Energy,
and Prosperity with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
