Election Timidity

Surely, it is reasonable to ask why it is that those currently vying for political office in Manitoba are studiously avoiding the truly important issues we are facing. The important question any thinking person must be asking is: what leadership is our government giving with respect to our addiction to energy consumption and our oblivion to the pollution we are creating.

In 2008, amidst much fanfare, the then Doer government announced its “Climate Change and Emissions Reduction Act”. The government committed then to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Well we have not come even close to reaching that target. Doer suggested in 2008 that if we did not reach this target, this would be a good and adequate reason to defeat the NDP at the polls.

But dismally, the only opposition party that has shown any interest in this failure is the Green Party. The other two parties, it seems could not care less. One can only assume that if they form the government, they expect to do even less with respect to greenhouse gas emissions and the squandering of energy.

This is no trivial matter. In spite of windmills and ground source heat pumps, our dependence on fossil fuel in continuing to increase. We do not need statistics to know that. We build more efficient cars, but we drive more. Look at our highways. We have more efficient furnaces, but we build bigger houses. Our grocery shelves continue to burgeon with produce transported from all parts of the world. We mandate biofuels, but do nothing to decrease consumption. A holiday is not holiday if it is not fueled by energy.

Remember, we have already consumed the readily accessible oil. Were this not the case, we would not be extracting oil from the bitumen deposits in Alberta. The bitumen deposits may be vast, but not all the deposits are as easy to get at as the stuff we are extracting now. Inevitably, we will move from the more accessible bitumen to the less accessible stuff. Were the oil found below the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico not gone, we would not be drilling for oil deposited one mile below the surface of the ocean. The easy to get oil is gone. Puff! After we have extracted the oil deposited below a mile of ocean, we will drill for oil below two miles of ocean. And this trend will go on until the energy required to extract the oil is equal to the energy available from the oil.

To believe that we can have cheap energy forever is a fantasy. To believe that we are entitled to cheap energy is utterly and disgustingly self-serving.

There is only one policy that will break our addiction to energy, and that is a carbon tax. British Columbia has a carbon tax, although it is a very small tax at this time. BC has taken a small step in the right direction.

Oh, that Manitoba politicians had such courage and vision!

Eric Rempel