Hooray for Oil!

Recently, I had a fairly decent discussion with one of my colleagues about the Alberta Oilsands, and how they impact the environment. We both agreed that the environmental impact is significant. However, we did not agree on the basis on how to fix the problem. He believed that the individual could have a significant impact and the efforts of individuals could change the minds of society and move Alberta from Oil-dependence.

I agree that the individuals have an important part to play in raising awareness, however, I do not believe that individuals can persuade our economy to diversify beyond being oil-based. In Alberta, whether or not people are directly aware of it, the majority of the economy is based on either providing services and material for the oilfield (as a primary beneficiary) or on the capital generated from the oilfield (secondary and tertiary beneficiaries). Now, the majority of the people working in the oilfield are skilled workers/tradespeople that are building/maintaining the infrastructure (rigs/mines/plants/etc). These are the primary beneficiaries of the oilfield. The salaries that these skilled laborers make is staggering, enough that during the boom of the oilfield in the late 90's/early 2000's there was a significant shortage of labor in Alberta. Usually, people just think as these workers as the only people that benefit economically from the oilfield. What happens when these workers spend this "oil money"? The local retailers benefit. These are the secondary (and sometimes tertiary) beneficiaries of the oilfield. Alberta has one of the most large and brisk retail economies, dealing in a lot of luxury items, fast cars, and lifted (as my wife calls them) "small penis" trucks. In addition, the Provincial Government vastly benefits from the oilfield and the royalties it produces. Long story short, almost everyone in some way, shape, or form benefits from the oilfield.

For quite some time, there have been a lot of organizations and companies doing various things to draw attention to the oilfield and some of the problems associated with it. For example, you had Lush hold protests in front of its stores. You had a bunch of companies such as Gap, Timberland, Levi's, Walgreens, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. "boycott" Alberta Oil by apparently using oil from other sources in its supply chain. I'm not totally sold that these companies are actually accomplishing anything but pulling a press stunt. These are mostly companies that sell higher end merchandise, ironically to people that are benefiting from the oilfield. Even if their supply chains where made to be completely devoid of Alberta Oil, simple economics would kick in. How you ask? Well, consider this situation. A higher demand for other-than Alberta Oil occurs, the price for that oil increases. Other consumers look at the situation, and are confronted with the choice between expensive non-Alberta Oil, or cheaper Alberta Oil. I can guarantee, with 100% certainty, that someone will buy that Alberta Oil, regardless of whether or not these retail companies do.

So then, how then do you encourage change? How do you encourage the common person to demand change? You saw it fairly recently in the US with Obama's Election. I still believe that Obama won that election convincingly based on one major reason: enough people were affected negatively by the "just" war in Iraq. You effect the everyday life of people enough, they will make a choice for change. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are more examples of stimulus for wide-sweeping changes in public opinion. Pearl Harbor was an unfortunate, but necessary event to change the perception of entering WWII. Same goes with 9/11 and dealing with terrorism.

I'm not saying that violence is the answer, I'm simply suggesting that the public has to be directly affected, or inconvenienced if you will,  in order to stimulate change. Its nice that we have all these companies/individuals raising awareness. But, without stimulus for change, awareness is useless. So, here's my solution (not necessarily in this order), that may allow Alberta to get off its "oil habit":

1. There has to be a second reasonable and desirable choice for oilfield workers to go. Government must take a leading role in developing industry other than Oil. I don't care whether it is manufacturing, tech, R&D, or what have you, there has to be a diversification of industry. The majority of workers in the oilfield are not specialized to the oilfield. Its simply the highest paying jobs out there currently. Diversify the industry, subsidize that industry to make people want to move from the oilfield. Perhaps something like a lower tax rate for non-oilfield related work.

2. There has to be a stimulus to change public opinion, above and beyond the current awareness-based campaigns. If people are comfortable in their daily lives, no appreciable change will occur. How did we encourage people to recycle drink containers? A deposit. How can we make people take a serious stance on the environmental damage caused by the oilsands? Make the oil companies financially responsible for the environmental damage. The oil companies will not even blink, and just simply pass on the costs to the public. I guarantee you, the second that a litre of gas goes up by $3 overnight for Alberta-Oilsands oil only, you'll have your change in public opinion.

So yeah, long story short, without inconveniencing the public, no change will occur.

So, the Olympics are cool, and for once we finally have some decent coverage. CTV (the non-government owned Canadian National Network) is running the coverage, and its really good. They have multiple networks (which they run/own) broadcasting multiple events, different feeds, etc. There's a wide variety of events shown, and rightly so, being a Winter Olympics in Canada.

Although the amount of negative press/coverage that is out there about the Olympics is pretty funny. Granted, some of the sources for this negative press are suspect, but yeah, its still there. The ones that really get me are the following:

1. The brand of "Worst Olympics Ever" due to the death of the Georgian Athlete and the hydraulic failure of the indoor cauldron during the opening ceremonies. Well. I won't disagree or downplay the tragedy of the training accident. That was pretty brutal. What was more brutal was the media's coverage of it, with many outlets showing the last moments of this poor athlete as his head bounced off the steel beam at 90 mph. That sickening "boing" noise stayed with me for a few days. This is what I don't understand: they show someone colliding with a steel beam at 90 MPH continuously, and then they'll freak the minute there's verbal profanity or the slightest bit of partial nudity. I suppose if it makes news, the rules don't matter. The hydraulic failure of the cauldron goes into the "shit happens" column of the potential things that could have gone wrong. I would like to see a full list of "Olympic Glitches" that have occurred in the recent Olympics, and then compare notes with Vancouver.

But anyways, in terms of "Worst Olympics Ever", the current ones have a LONG way to go. There's a few memorable Olympics that stand out in my mind as markedly worst. Munich with the eleven athletes murdered and Atlanta with the terrorist attack. Realistically, this isn't the first Luge-related death at an Olympics either. But whatever, this is looking more like a "Oh, the Olympics aren't in the USA, therefore its crap" syndrome of the US-based media.

Heaven help us if we show the slightest iota of national pride.. lol.

2. The major outcry about the "lack of winter" in Vancouver. Holy hell. Vancouver doesn't "see" winter half the time. I think this is being blown out of proportion, especially with the trucking/shipping of snow into Cypress Mountain. Talk to anyone that is an avid skier that gets around in BC. They'll laugh and say: "Cypress has a two-week season some years". Hmm... it seems like the choice of venues is to blame here. Why isn't the freestyle isn't happening at a venue that's guaranteed snow.. like Whistler? Oh well, bad planning.

3. The protests. Wow. People protesting things like tarsands oil at the Olympics. Talk about complaining about the wrong thing at the wrong place. Yes. The tarsands are environmentally bad. That's a point I won't even remotely consider arguing against. However, I think the people that continually call for the reduction/stoppage of oilsands production in Northern Alberta simply do not understand the simple economics of the situation.

You stop the oilsands, Alberta goes broke as a province. Its THAT simple. Period. What people do not understand, especially the environmentalists that are too concerned about digging up skewed facts that just strengthen their argument, rather than understanding all sides of the situation, is that the majority of Alberta's Provincial Revenues, the actual money that runs the province, are oilsands royalties. Not to mention that a large amount of Albertans work in the oilsands, oilpatch and related services/industries whose livelihoods would be instantly crushed. Pair that, with the reduction of social programs and rampant government cutbacks, and suddenly every Albertan gets affected. The only "have" province, supporting all the others through transfer payments is on the verge of being a "have not" province.

Still not convinced? Well, lets look at the numbers. The government's revenues are directly tied to the price of oil and the US/CAN dollar conversion rate. High price of oil, and low Canadian Dollar, suddenly you have ridiculous revenues. Its to the point where they've actually calculated the revenue loss per $0.001 gain in conversion rate vs the US dollar at $225 million. Before the economic downturn in the US began, there was a point where the government, essentially run by blindfolded monkeys, had multi-billion dollar surpluses. Let me put this in perspective. A province/state of just over 3 million people had something in the order of an 8 billion dollar budget surplus. For the majority of the downturn, while jobs were being cut left right and centre everywhere BUT Alberta, we were in a worker shortage. You could not find workers to work at McDonalds. People working at Tim Hortons in Ft MacMurray (Oilpatch) were reported of making upwards of $30/hour. Then.. oil started to drop, Canadian Dollar started gaining relative strength. Suddenly, the revenue stream dried up, and we started to feel the effects of the recession. Oilpatch layoffs, Gov't cutbacks, and retail jobs/stores dissappearing are common place. Going from multi-billion dollar surpluses, now the provincial gov't is going to run a multi-billion dollar deficit. Nice.

Now, I won't downplay, nor argue the environmental impact of the tarsands. The University that I work at essentially has a whole Faculty (more or less) funded by oil companies attempting to reduce the environmental impact of the oil processing. Nobody's arguing the fact that there's positive change that needs to occur.

But you know, apparently that's not good enough for the protesters, the majority of which most likely have no ties to Alberta whatsoever. Environmentalism at the cost of the livelihoods of many and the well being of 3.5 million plus people is apparently acceptable for these people. Good to know someone values the life of a duck moreso than my well being.

I have no problem with people expressing their views, in fact, I encourage it. I just wish people would think more about a situation as a whole, rather than taking narrow minded, one dimensional views. Oh well. Environmentalism seems to be just another way to be selfish.

(Edited for my horrible late night grammar. Damn you Candidacy Documentation!)