Dear Editor
Potential spills, explosions and fires; taxpayers’ cost in preparing for and dealing with them; property values; Kinder Morgan’s dubious safety record (including four Trans Mountain spills since 2005); earthquake risk; First Nations’ rights; the extra toxicity of diluted bitumen; groundwater quality; long-term marine environment damage from tankers; the export of jobs to refineries overseas; low job-creation compared to investment in more sustainable energy; Canada’s own future energy needs – the downsides to the proposed expansion of the KM export pipeline are multiple.
Add unfolding global climate chaos, which the project would worsen by expanding the Alberta bitumen sands “carbon bomb.” Energy expert David Hughes’s report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that expanded oil and gas production would make it “near-impossible” to honour Canada’s reduced-emission commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Moreover, “new pipelines are not needed under Alberta’s cap on oil sands emissions.” These themes are notably absent from KM’s slick propaganda.
Let’s reject the drug dealer’s defence that “if we don’t sell it, somebody else will,” and push for renewable energy globally, with an urgency appropriate to planetary emergency.
A civilization is in trouble when it tries to solve its problems by doubling down on what caused them. Like tobacco a generation ago, Big Oil has become a rogue industry. Its excessive power needs to be counterbalanced, for a healthy democracy and a diversified sustainable economy.
Bob Hackett, Burnaby resident and professor at Simon Fraser University
