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I have decided to move from Blogger to Wordpress. Consequently, you can now find me at http://bill-longstaff.ca. I hope you’ll join me.

An Optimist No More

I am a very lucky human being. I was born into the greatest period for a member of Homo sapiens to be alive, the peak of human civilization—the period following WWII. Never before in human history has an ordinary person such as I been able to enjoy such an exceptional combination of high standard of living, comprehensive knowledge, personal freedom and influence in the affairs of his or her society. When in the past has an ordinary person been able to look up at the night sky and actually have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what he's looking at?

In the last 300 years Western society has made more social, material and political progress than in all the preceding millennia since civilization was invented in Mesopotamia. We have seen the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, the empowerment of women, the end of child labour, legal marriage for gays and lesbians ... the list is long.

Much progress has taken place in my lifetime. When I was a kid, people of Indigenous and Chinese ethnicity couldn't vote, homosexuality was illegal and women were restricted to few occupations. Now most young people can hardly imagine such primitive attitudes.

All of this remarkable social progress, most of it never before achieved in human history, has been supplemented by remarkable technical progress. As a child, I lived in a house in southern Saskatchewan that lacked insulation, running water, indoor plumbing and central heating, not because we were exceptionally poor but because in the 1930s that's how many working class families lived. Most young people today can hardly imagine that either.

Today I live in a warm, comfortable apartment with all the facilities one expects in a modern home and spend many hours investigating the world on my computer. I live a life that would seem inconceivable luxury to 99 per cent of the humans who ever lived, regardless of their station.

As a result of this background of progress and my own rising fortunes, I have tended to be optimistic. It has seemed obvious to me that, though setbacks will occur, and we have had some deep dark ones in the recent past, the general trend of humanity is upward and onward.

But here, in my twilight years, it rather suddenly appears that even if this had been true it no longer is. Humanity faces threats greater than it has ever faced before and it is clearly not dealing with them, and I'm not talking about the coronavirus. These are threats that, if not dealt with, will bring civilization down around our ears, even terminate our species entirely. One threat alone, the most immediate—global warming—has progressed to where its effects are nearing tipping points. Indeed global warming itself threatens to become irreversible in the not too distant future.

This may sound like the grumbling of a stereotypically grumpy old man. Perhaps a stereotypically grumpy old man unnerved or depressed by the current pandemic. I can, however, deny that is the case. Why? Because science, the only instrument we have to truly understand the physical world, supports the observation that humanity is despoiling its home. This isn't even pessimism. Basing the potential of an unpleasant future on science isn't pessimistic. It is, to the contrary, realistic.

If humanity is to avoid a very unpleasant future indeed, it will have to step up its reduction of greenhouse gasses well beyond what it's doing now. It will have to stop exterminating other species. And it will have to reduce its exploitation of the Earth's resources sufficiently to where the planet can sustainably replace what is exploited. Can humanity do all this? Maybe, however the opportunity is rapidly slipping away. More importantly, will it do all this? And here the pessimist enters the picture.

Imagine a World Without Us

Since a large slice of humanity went into hibernation to dodge the coronavirus, the world outside our habitats has changed. There is much less noise. Birdsong can be heard. The air is cleaner, more breathable. The skies are bluer. It is as if by sequestering us, the world is being purified. It is as if nature could apply a bleach that sanitized it against us, it would be whole again.

And indeed it would. We do pollute it. We do foul the water, the land and the air. We do commit holocausts upon entire species. We do make a lot of noise. We are, in many ways, a plague upon nature, a pandemic upon the rest of life. It isn't difficult to conceive of the world without us—a cleaner, quieter place where almost every other species could thrive without fear of an ultimate predator.

A place where oceans weren't acidifying, warming and filling up with plastic. A place where forests weren't disappearing. A place where species weren't being systematically driven into extinction. A place where water was clean, the skies were blue and you could always hear birds sing when the sun shone.

Imagine!

Conservatives Struggle with Science

When conservatives talk about "the elites," and they talk about them a lot, it isn't always clear who they are talking about. They certainly aren't referring to the rich, who many of us think of as the elites, because conservatives are the party of the rich, the party of privilege. One group they generally include are experts, people who really know what they are talking about, particularly scientists. University of Toronto philosopher Joseph Heath once wrote that, “Hostility to expertise in all of its forms is the closest thing that Canadian conservatives have to a unifying ideology.”

We certainly saw that with the Harper government. Harper's “war on science,” as it was not unfairly called, included such measures as the cancellation of the long-form census, widespread butchery of environmental law, the reconfiguration of government-funded research away from pure research toward commercial, and in effect making the National Research Council a “concierge” to industry.

Jason Kenney brought much of that anti-expert agenda to Alberta, particularly as it pertains to the environment. Environmental groups are demonized as foreign-funded pawns of a “radical ideological agenda” and subjected to assault by the infamous “war room.”

Nationally, on energy and the environment at least, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer seems little more than a Kenney puppet. Like their provincial counterparts, the federal Conservatives apparently see government's first priority as enabling the rapid extraction of natural resources. We see conservatives elsewhere in the world reflecting that attitude, including the Trump administration in the United States and the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil where the Amazon is now under increasing commercial assault. Both Trump and Bolsonaro reject climate science utterly. Bolsonaro rejects also the seriousness of COVID-19. Both see such concerns as arising from the insidious influence of "the elites."

The reason for the hostility isn't hard to adduce. Experts, particularly scientists, often undo conservative dogma. Experts insist “tough on crime” legislation generally fails to make people safer. Experts point to increasing evidence that unequal societies are unhealthy societies. Experts warn that use of fossil fuels has brought a climate crisis upon us. Experts tell us that meat, particularly beef, is a terribly inefficient and environmentally destructive way to provide ourselves with protein. Messages unwelcome to conservative ears simply won't stop.

One way to make them stop, of course, is to cut off the source of information that enables them. Consider, for example, Stephen Harper's disdain of sociology and the way its conclusions frequently conflict with neo-liberal dogma, including the idea that unequal societies are unhealthy societies. If you don't want to see the results of sociological studies on issues such as inequality, starve them of the necessary data, i.e. the long-form census.

Science is the only method we have of properly understanding the physical world. Without that understanding, faced with global warming, species extinction and resource exhaustion, humanity is in grave danger. We are disarmed in the face of our gravest threats. Politicians who struggle with science are not only unfit to govern in this modern age, but are outright dangerous.

Albertans Want off the Oil Train ... Eventually

A common opinion about Albertans is that when it comes to energy they are about oil and nothing but oil. Like most generalizations this contains some truth, but also like most generalizations it isn't quite true. A CBC News poll, taken just before the pandemic changed everything, reported that 79 percent of Albertans believe the province should transition toward renewable energy. Over 90 percent think the government should do more to encourage the technology sector.

But that doesn't mean Albertans are prepared to abandon oil just yet. While about half want the province to transition away from oil and gas, the other half don't. The opinion varies greatly between town and country. The strongest support for abandoning oil, not surprisingly, is in Edmonton or as it is sometimes known, Redmonton. Nonetheless, most Calgarians agree (55 percent to Edmonton's 58). Outside of the two major cities, however, support for kicking the oil habit drops to 37 percent. This is important. The countryside belongs to the UCP.

So what exactly does overwhelming support for transitioning to renewables modified by 50/50 support on transitioning off oil mean? I suggest it sends a clear message. Albertans are ready to move from where we are—highly dependent on oil and gas—to where we need to be—in a low carbon economy—but they have to feed their families on the journey. And that still means oil.

It's an encouraging message. It means Albertans know we have to go green, but they have to be convinced we can do it humanely. They have been providing the life blood of modern society for generations; they don't want to be human sacrifices to the new age, even while they recognize the new age must come. This is fair and Canada must meet the challenge.

Unfortunately, our own government is less than helpful. Our premier knows the transition must occur. In his own words, “I have a firm grasp of the obvious. There is no reasonable person that can deny that in the decades to come we will see a gradual shift from hydrocarbon-based energy to other forms of energy.” Yet in his policies and, except in these weaker moments, in his words, he appears to be always doubling down on oil, desperately clinging to the past.

Perhaps the combination of the oil price collapse and the pandemic (and, oh yes, the Keystone pipeline is back in legal limbo) will shock him and his government free of their obsession with crude and shake loose some policies to get the province on the right track. Most of his people are waiting.

Oil Industry Disses the Free Market

The free market, who needs it. Not the oil industry obviously. Not the industry nor the governments that depend on its largesse for royalties and taxes. We just had a taste of it and it horrified all parties concerned.

OPEC and its erstwhile collaborators recently fell out and instead of limiting production to maintain price, as they had been doing, they engaged in all-out competition. That, of course, is the point of the free market. Unrestrained competition drives prices down toward the level of the most efficient producer's costs. And the lowest lowest price is what the consumer wants. But the lowest price is not what the producer wants, nor what royalty and tax-collecting governments want.

So while the recent price-busting skirmish was a bonanza for consumers of oil products, it was not happy-making for oil companies and their governments. So they have made an unprecedented pact to constrain production in order to drive oil prices back up. They have decided to rig the market. They find a price-fixed market much more appealing than a free market.

The OPEC cartel and other oil producers, including Russia, the U.S., Mexico and Norway, agreed Sunday to cut crude production by a tenth of global supply to "stabilize" the market. This is the largest cut to oil output ever. Canada is not part of the pact as our production is under provincial jurisdiction. Nonetheless, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage was "cautiously pleased" by the deal. 

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing the move. I'm not opposed to government interference in the market place. Quite the contrary. During this COVID shock, a lot of unprecedented policies have become necessary. What does annoy me is the support among certain politicians and business people for free markets as a veritable answer to all problems. And the oil industry is replete with such believers. I am one Albertan, and there aren't a lot of us, who recognizes that the wealth of this province derives primarily not from a free market but rather from government interference in the market, specifically by the OPEC cartel, i.e. from a monopoly, the very antithesis of a free market. OPEC's antics over the years have made an Alberta oil industry profitable, and a tar sands industry possible.

No one philosophy has all the wisdom. Free markets are a wonderful economic instrument. Indeed they must be the foundation of a healthy economy, but in some areas and at some times, they are less than the best, sometimes much less, and therefore should be considered on their merits for a particular activity, time and place and not as an economic panacea. It appears that virtually the entire oil industry and its political acolytes currently agree. If perhaps unwittingly.

The Vatican's Lady Problem

The Vatican just doesn't seem able to get past its misogyny. Once again it is debating whether or not to allow women some role in the Church hierarchy. The Pope has created a commission of experts to examine whether women can be deacons, the bottom rung of the ecclesiastical ladder. In at least one concession to the fair sex, the commission includes equal numbers of men and women. Some of the fustiest clergy are upset that the idea is even being considered at all, insisting that allowing women to be deacons would become a slippery slope toward ordaining women as priests. And who knows what mischief women priests might get up to.

Not that the Pope has any intention of allowing women any power over men. He hews to tradition on that point, affirming that only men can become priests and referencing an ecclesiastical letter written by Pope John Paul II in which that pontiff declared “that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.” So there, ladies.

The Church has long based its prejudice on the fact that Christ chose only men for his apostles.This argument overlooks the fact that Christ also chose only Jews for his apostles. So how did all those Italian guys get into the act? Indeed, I understand that the first Christians debated over whether Gentiles should even be baptized and allowed into the Church.

And it isn't as if the institution can't change its mind. At one time it accepted abortion. Now it doesn't. At one time it rejected evolution. Now it doesn't. Were all the popes before these changes wrong, or all the ones after? So much for papal infallibility.

Although the Pope's commission includes women, it is still under the stern stewardship of men. Its president is the archbishop of the Italian city of L'Aquila and second in command is an official from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's KGB. Both needless to say, are male.

Here in the 21st century what other institution would need a commission to deliberate upon whether or not women can be allowed, not to hold power of any sort, but just to enter the lowest level of the hierarchy. The entire exercise serves to illustrate nothing more than just how deeply misogyny remains entrenched in the Catholic psyche.

I'm Becoming an Oil Baron

For those who complain there's nothing in the news but COVID these days, try the Alberta section. Lots going on. For example, our government just laid off 26,000 school support staff while shelling out $1.5 billion, plus a $6-billion loan guarantee, to buy us a piece of the Keystone XL pipeline.

I'm already part owner of the Trans Mountain pipeline which the federal government kindly bought for us for $4.5 billion in 2018. And then there's the investments that Alberta crown corporation Alberta Investment Management Corp. has made in various pipelines. That's the group that our premier has decided will manage my government pension. I am practically an oil baron.

I once worked in the oil industry. It was good to me and I quite appreciated it, but that was long before the product I was proud to help produce became commonly recognized as the major contributor to global warming. I have recognized the need to downsize fossil fuels for years and yet here I am becoming increasingly invested in producing more of the stuff. I think it's called irony,

Sinking the public's dollars into pipelines may seem foolish at a time when oil prices have collapsed and investors are becoming increasingly wary of the industry, but Alberta has a premier who seems to consider the oil industry more a religious institution than a mere economic one. And he is a man of faith. The evidence that governments in this country are serious about global warming gets thinner and thinner. If they were, I wouldn't be becoming an owner of ever more pipelines, i.e. increasingly becoming an enabler of greenhouse gas emissions.

All hope is not lost however. On April 1st—this is not a joke—the federal carbon tax ramped up from from $20 to $30 a tonne. An action to reduce emissions can't help but be appreciated in these days of respiratory pandemic.

How Do You Wash Your Hands When There's No Water?

Handwashing is a lifesaver. As we are being reminded constantly in these days of pandemic, thorough handwashing with soap and water is one of the most effective barriers to the spread of disease.

Unfortunately, according to the UN, 40 percent of humanity are without basic handwashing facilities, i.e. soap and water available at home. And not only at home. Almost half of schools around the world lack handwashing facilities. A third of schools worldwide and half of schools in the least developed countries have no place for children to wash their hands at all. Even health facilities often lack proper hand hygiene due to a lack of water.

Consider, for example, the Central American Dry Corridor, the tropical dry forest region that runs along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Panama. The region has suffered five straight years of drought as the climate becomes hotter and drier. According to Dr. Claudia Morales, a doctor at El Carmen hospital in Honduras, “Sometimes we run out of water and we have to buy some. Other times we can’t buy any.” Dr. Morales said the hospital has been forced to ration water for the last four years.

The idea of hospitals suffering water shortages that preclude proper hygiene is frightening. The thought of 40 percent of the world's population denied the most basic protection against disease as the pandemic descends upon them is horrifying.

Back to the 30s?

“We are facing a period of profound adversity unlike any we have since the 1930s,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said last week. The premier was referring to the province's economy which has, like the rest of the country, indeed like the rest of the world, been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Unlike the rest of the country, however, Alberta's major industry was already tanking before the meat market in Wuhan launched the bug.

Strolling down 17th Avenue in the Beltline—the high street of Calgary's most vibrant neighbourhood—I do indeed witness intimations of the 30s. Its normally bustling shops, pubs, restaurants and coffee shops are disturbingly quiet, many closed. The scene causes a twinge of guilt. I have reluctantly given up my usual afternoon coffee and pastry or lunch, one of the highlights of my day. By depriving these shops of my business I am contributing to the suffering of their small business owners and their minimum-wage staff. But what can I do—the pandemic is upon us and social distancing is de rigueur.

The other day a friend and I were discussing how in our lifetimes society had consistently improved, and now in our dotage it seems to be reversing. And it's not just cranky old age. We aren't imagining Donald Trump, Brexit and the taint off fascism in the political air.

Harking back to the 30s struck a particular chord with me. I was born in Saskatchewan in 1934, in the heart of the Great Depression. That's where I came in. Is that where I'll go out?

Early in the 20th century, Saskatchewan was a province of exceptional promise. Here was the country's breadbasket with vast expanses of agricultural soil among the richest in the world. Then came the 1930s bringing depression, drought and plagues of grasshoppers. Wheat prices collapsed and the fertile land began to blow away. That was the Saskatchewan I was born into. Now here I am in Alberta 85 years later and this province, lately the richest in the federation, watches the price of its major product collapse and waits for its leading industry to dry up and blow away.

I could be pessimistic, wondering if hard times just have a thing for the Prairies. Yet I cannot overlook the fact that the "Dirty Thirties" catalyzed the rise of left-wing social movements on the Prairies, particularly the CCF (forerunner of the NDP), that ultimately resulted in great social progress including Medicare, the jewel in the crown of the welfare state. Perhaps this round of hard times will lead to another social awakening.

A Silver Lining to COVID-19?

As an optimist I tend to look for silver linings in the darker clouds. The other day I read an article saying some Italians remarked that they could finally hear birds sing and see blue skies as a result of the decline of industrial activity caused by COVID-19. Something good at least had come out of the pandemic. Of course, for the cynics, there was also an unintended message, i.e. the Earth would be a lot better place without human beings to muck it up, including causing monster viruses.

But back to the silver lining. Among the things the bug has shown us, two could have positive outcomes. One, we are seeing the interconnectedness of all of us. We are truly a global society. And two, our global society is a lot more vulnerable than we might like to think. The interconnectedness has been illustrated by the speed with which the virus traversed the globe, confirmed by the desperation with which we try to stop it. The vulnerability has been illustrated by how just one minuscule bug can fracture our society while seriously undermining our health and our economy. Is it possible that these two lessons could wake more people up to the climate crisis?

After all, global warming is ultimately a far more serious threat than COVID-19. Our need to recognize the vulnerability of global society and to act collectively is therefore also far greater. Global warming, too, can spread disease. And it has many more dirty tricks up its sleeve: more frequent and more intense fires, storms and droughts; rising sea levels with massive flooding of cities and even countries; the melting of glaciers with the consequent exhaustion of water supplies; the acidification of the oceans and the death of the world’s coral reefs; disruption of ocean currents ironically creating another ice age in Wesstern Europe; and so on ... and so on. Global warming could even become irreversible and then it's a countdown until planet Earth is uninhabitable for Homo sapiens.

This cascade of catastrophes is heading our way—or is upon us now. Will this nasty little bug wake up enough skeptics and deniers such that humanity will do what is necessary to avoid the apocalypse? We really shouldn’t need a wave of suffering and death to alert us to the need to save ourselves from ourselves, but the evidence convinces even my optimist self that we probably do. If the virus does this it will truly have brought a silver lining along with the misery.

Oil Capitals Hunker Down

To Calgarians, the city is starting to feel like a punching bag. Its primary industry suffers one body blow after another. Oil prices crashed at the end of 2014 as surprising growth in U.S. shale production boosted supply while OPEC refused to cut its output. Major investment firms, finally recognizing climate change, have been turning away from oil one after another. Teck Resources decided earlier this year to abandon its proposed Frontier tar sands mine. And now a double blow: the COVID-19 bug has dramatically reduced oil demand while Russia and OPEC end their production alliance and engage in a price war. One punch in the face after another leaves the oil capital of Canada reeling.

The degree of the assault is a surprise but the assault itself shouldn't have been. What is more surprising is that North America's other oil capital—Houston—is also taking a beating. After all, Texas is the home of the Permian Basin, a major producer of shale oil, the very product that has largely undone tar sands oil while doubling U.S. production in under a decade and making that country the world's largest producer. But of course the drop in prices brought on by that surge in supply has hit shale oil as well. And now the climate change and  COVID-19 effects and the Russia-OPEC price war are further hammering the shale oil business. And hammering Houston. The oil industry drives a third of the city’s GDP and directly employs a quarter-million workers. Shale oil producers, like tar sands producers, can't make money when crude sells at $31 per barrel.

Bobby Tudor, chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership, warned recently “The oil and gas business is not likely to be the same engine for Houston’s growth over the next 25 years that it’s been in the past 25 years,” and went on to add how climate change has put  the oil industry “out of favor at the moment, in most every corner of the investing and political world.” Familiar words to Calgarians.

Oil and gas aren’t going away overnight, but the handwriting is on the wall. Ninety-five percent of new capacity being added to the Texas grid is solar, wind or storage.

Both capitals ponder their futures as they struggle with their finances. Both talk about diversification, tossing around words like data science, software engineering, innovation centers and other greener industries. Both cities are well-educated and entrepreneurial so the potential is there. The early cultures of the two cities was Western. A trace of nostalgia remains in both cities illustrated by a certain penchant for cowboy boots and Stetson hats. It's now time for the boots and hats to mosey on down to greener pastures.

The Baby Boosters

According to the Worldometer (the world population clock), at 12:22 p.m. today the planet's population of Homo sapiens was 7,769,974,138 with a net gain (births over deaths) of 114,862 so far this morning. You might think this was more than enough of us, given that we are multiplying on the Earth like a fungus, devouring its resources.

But to some it seems there is never enough of our kind. “Give birth!” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared recently. “Every woman is to have six children! Every one! For the good of the country!” This from a man who has run his nation into utter dysfunction. Hospitals are barely functioning, women can't breastfeed properly because they are malnourished, and baby formula is unaffordable. But breed on, ladies. Perhaps he is just trying to replace Venezuelans faster than they can flee his corrupt, incompetent regime. So far about 4.5 million have fled.

In Hungary, President Orban offers IVF clinics, generous loans for couples who promise to procreate, and lifetime income tax exemptions for having four or more children, in order to encourage Hungarians to multiply.

Countries across Europe and other developed nations are instituting baby bonuses as their fertility rates decline. As Katalin Novak, Hungary’s minister of state for family, youth and international affairs, puts it, “Europe has become the continent of the empty crib.” In Eastern and Southern Europe, the declining rates are aggravated by young people seeking greener pastures elsewhere. These countries have legitimate worries about the economic ramifications of aging populations, but there is of course no shortage of young, industrious workers in the world. They are called immigrants and literally millions are desperately looking for places to make a fresh start.

But the repopulation is about much more than economics. It's also about building up the tribe. Vladimir Putin declares, “Russia’s fate and its historic prospects depend on how many of us there are … it depends on how many children are born in Russian families.” Putin, Orban et al. don't want people; they want racially correct people. It becomes some kind of population race.

It is one thing to provide children's benefits to assist lower income families, such as our Canada Child Benefit, but promoting population growth for growth's sake on a planet already swarming with excessive humanity is not just foolish, it's unsustainable and potentially suicidal.

The Cartel Still Rules ... Sort of

It isn't easy to convince nominally free-market Albertans that monopoly and government interference in the market made us rich, but of course they did. Nothing has contributed more to the province's coffers than OPEC, the oil-producing countries' cartel. OPEC's control of supply has kept oil prices well above what a free market would provide and that has kept Alberta's oil economically viable and made the province rich. It's fair to say that without OPEC there would never have been a tar sands industry.

Of course, the cartel's clout isn't what it was. It now controls only about 40 percent of the world oil market unlike the early '70s when it controlled 70 percent and first realized its monopoly power. Nonetheless, it still has muscle, particularly when it allies with another major producer. For the last three years it has teamed up with Russia to constrain supply and keep prices up. However that arrangement collapsed acrimoniously on Friday when Moscow refused to support deeper cuts to cope with the drop in demand caused by the coronavirus. OPEC answered by unleashing it own production. Oil prices have dropped accordingly.

Canada's oil patch is bracing for what Judith Dwarkin, chief economist at RS Energy Group, is calling a "toxic recipe" for prices. With the coronavirus effect and now OPEC freeing up supply, things are not looking good. Incentive to invest in oil declines even further. Can bankruptcies be far behind?

Do not be surprised if Jason Kenney blames both the coronavirus and the collapse of the Russia-OPEC deal on the diabolical machinations of the Prime Minister. Justin will stop at nothing.

On the Subject of Pandemics

The illness and death toll from the coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it is now known, steadily advances. As I write, the bug has sickened over 95,000 people and killed over 3,300, mostly in China. It still has a long way to go to match the flu which annually takes hundreds of thousands of lives globally, 3,500 on average in Canada alone. But both pale by comparison to the villain discussed in an article published by the European Society of Cardiology entitled "The world faces an air pollution ‘pandemic.’"

According to recent research by the Max Planck Institute, global air pollution caused an extra 8.8 million premature deaths in 2015, more than HIV/AIDS, parasitic and vector-born diseases such as malaria, and all forms of violence, including wars, combined. Even more than smoking (7.2 million deaths).

The researchers looked at the effect of air pollution on six categories of disease, including lung cancer, heart disease, and other non-communicable diseases including conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. They distinguished between human-made air pollution and pollution from natural sources such as desert dust and wildfire emissions. About two-thirds of the premature deaths are caused by human-made air pollution, mainly from fossil fuels. Five and a half million deaths a year potentially avoidable.

No viral diseases are as guilty. The bugs are nasty but by far the worst damage done to us we do ourselves. And perhaps first among our instruments of mischief are fossil fuels.

Is Kenney Coming After Our Pensions?

Premier Jason Kenney, ardent free market conservative, has started sounding a little like Peter Lougheed, a former premier with more progressive conservative leanings. Indeed Lougheed was once labelled "Peter the Red" by B.C. Premier Dave Barrett after he bought Alberta an airline. Lougheed never hesitated to dive into socialism when he saw an advantage for Alberta. In 1973 he established the Alberta Energy Company (AEC) to be owned equally by private shareholders and the Alberta government. It is Lougheed's AEC that has caught Kenney's eye.

And that's not all that has caught his eye. He is also gathering up civil servants' pensions under the umbrella of the government-owned Alberta Investment Management Company (AIMCo). The government has announced that the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund as well as funds managed by Alberta Health Services and the Workers’ Compensation Board are to be turned over to AIMCo for investment management.

Three other plans have also attracted government attention. The Local Authorities Pension Plan (LAPP), the Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP) and the Special Forces Pension Plan (SFPP) had recently become independent of government, to be equally managed by employers and union reps. This change, long sought by public workers, was introduced in legislation by the former NDP government. The change gave over 351,000 public sector employees, including government and municipal employees, health-care workers, firefighters and police officers, joint control of their pension funds.

The new government has now restored government control. It has mandated AIMCo as permanent investment manager with no discretion for the plans to make changes. Boards of directors, currently appointed by the sponsor groups, will henceforth be appointed by government.

And not only Alberta pension plans are under scrutiny. One of the items being examined by the province’s “Fair Deal” panel is Alberta taking control of its share of the Canada Pension Plan. A separate Alberta pension plan could then also be tucked into the warm embrace of AIMCo.

Kenney's pension-grabbing may stem from a concern about where future oil investment is going to come from. His concern is well-founded. Major investment institutions such as BlackRock and J.P. Morgan are making environmental concerns central to their investment strategies. Even Norway's massive sovereign wealth fund, which was built by oil revenues, is ditching its tar sands portfolio. Foreign oil corporations have been selling off tar sands assets to Canadian companies. Apparently even U.S. shale drillers, who have been leading a phenomenal growth in oil production, are now seeing the money pipeline drying up.

If the premier's plan is to open up a pipeline with our security blanket, we pensioners (I am a member and beneficiary of the LAPP) have great cause for worry. AIMCo is committed to its fiduciary duty to act solely in the best interests of the members, but the AIMCo Act explicitly states that it must follow directives issued by the Treasury Board. Presumably that includes directives aiming investment at tar sands mines. What irony for me, a long-time advocate of strong action on climate change, if my pension fund were used to fuel global warming.

Justifying Lougheed's decision, Kenney stated, “The Toronto banks and the foreign funds, they weren’t going to go there. A lack of access of capital was met by bold leadership and public participation.” Well, they aren’t going there today, either, but for very different reasons. As Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid put it, "The earlier premier was launching an energy economy with infinite prospects. Kenney is trying to preserve it." Bold leadership today is moving away from fossil fuels, not desperately clinging to the past.

Wet’suwet’en—A Divided Nation

I have on a number of occasions sat with fingers poised over my keyboard attempting to write something about the Wet’suwet’en/pipeline issue. Too many issues keep cropping up in my mind frustrating my ability to see it all clearly. I am no doubt conflicted in part because the Wet’suwet’en are themselves conflicted. They are a divided nation.

They have two governments: one, the hereditary chiefs, almost unanimously oppose the Coastal GasLink pipeline; the other, the band councils, almost unanimously support it. Families are split over the issue. Hereditary chiefs go east to thank the Mohawks for backing them with railway blockades; a Wet’suwet’en businesswoman suggests blockaders "mind their own business."

The split is understandable. Our governments have failed to bring the hereditary chiefs adequately into the decision-making even though this is the body responsible for use of Wet’suwet’en land. And the Wet’suwet’en are concerned about the environmental effects of the pipeline on their territory, quite aside from the production of ever more fossil fuels.

On the other hand, the pipeline will carry natural gas, the least offensive of the fossil fuels. A leak would do little if any damage to land and water resources. And the Wet’suwet’en would benefit greatly from the line. Apparently Coastal GasLink has been exceedingly generous in its offers of compensation. According to a leaked agreement with the Nak'azdli Whut'en, it is offering general project payments, annual legacy payments over the lifetime of the pipeline, education and training benefits, and contracting and employment opportunities. And in addition there will be benefits from the provincial government.

The project offers the Wet’suwet’en prospects of a more financially secure future for themselves, their children and their community. We must eventually stop burning fossil fuels, but they will nonetheless continue to make up a large part of our energy needs at least in the short term. Why should the Wet’suwet’en not get a piece of the remaining action?

Personally, I am strongly opposed to combusting more fossil fuels, but stopping the pipeline would cost me nothing. It would cost the Wet’suwet’en a great deal. What would it say about me to sacrifice their prosperity on the altar of my beliefs?

The Price Ain't Right

Back in August of 2018 our federal government bought us a pipeline. Not exactly a bargain, it set us back $4.5-billion. The pipeline, the Trans Mountain, carries oil from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C. The government's reason, apparently, was to reassure Albertans that it really did want to help them get more oil to market. If we owned the pipeline, we could ensure that the proposed expansion to the line would be built—at a cost of a further $7.4-billion, rather more than the previous owner's estimate of $5.4-billion. The expansion was popular at the time with 57 percent of Canadians supporting it and only 26 percent opposed.

How things change. On February 7, Trans Mountain President and CEO Ian Anderson announced that the company’s expansion project would now cost $12.6-billion. Canadians' opinions changed in a hurry. Support, which had declined only slightly now dropped below 50 percent for the first time. Opposition jumped to 45 percent. We are now close to equally divided.

British Columbians, however, are more opposed than supportive. Over 60 percent of Quebeckers and almost half of Ontarians oppose the project. Albertans, needless to say, remain overwhelmingly in support. But for most Canadians, the truth is sinking in. We just may have a white elephant on our hands.

The legal hurdles appear to have been cleared, but now we face the critical hurdle—money. Who exactly is going to lay out $12.6-billion on an investment to move more dilbit? The investment markets are in fact trending very much in the other direction. So if a buyer doesn't step up, I guess it's on us, folks.

Why Would the UN General Assembly Elect Canada to the Security Council?

Prime Minister Trudeau has been hustling around the world, attempting to round up votes for Canada when the UN General Assembly elects members of the Security Council in June. Two seats are available for the Western European and Others Group, and three countries are in the running: Norway, Ireland and Canada. We've been elected to the council six times but infamously lost our bid in 2010 to Germany and Portugal.

So will enough countries vote for us this time? I wouldn't. What exactly have we done to deserve it? Our record on the most important issue facing the international community is appalling. As I noted in a previous post, we are consistently among the top three per capita greenhouse gas emitters in the G-20 and among the three least likely to meet our targets. Our competitors' do much better, easy for Ireland because it has no oil industry but Norway has a thriving oil industry and still gets its emissions down to almost half of ours.

On foreign aid we are a slacker. The UN aid target for a developed country is a minimum of 0.70 percent of its GDP. We give a measly 0.28. Ireland does a little better at 0.36 while Norway is well over the target at 1.05, one of the world's most generous countries. We were at one time a leader in peacekeeping, a concept we practically invented, but now we seem to have largely abandoned the enterprise. In 1993 there were 3336 Canadian peacekeepers deployed on UN missions, in 2019 only 150.

After his impressive election win in 2015, Trudeau announced, "Many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years. Well, I have a simple message for you: on behalf of 35 million Canadians, we’re back." Well, call me naive, but after a dreary decade on the international front with Stephen Harper, I believed him.

Yet here we are. A foreign aid budget of 0.28 percent of our GNP is not particularly compassionate and being a laggard on greenhouse gas emissions is hardly constructive. We seem to be idling along, failing our commitments to the international community, while hoping that same community will somehow recognize our inherent virtue and elevate us to the Security council, just  as we did with Harper. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

A Letter from an Albertan to His Prime Minister About the Tech Mine

Over the weekend I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau about the proposed Teck Frontier tar sands mine and cc'd appropriate parties. The letter is below. I felt it was important to let the feds know that not all Albertans are in denial about the climate crisis. I hope other like-minded Albertans will do the same. We can but try.

9 February 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Dear Prime Minister:

In 2015, you indicated a desire to make Canada a climate leader. Today, we are consistently among the top three per capita greenhouse gas emitters in the developed world and among the three least likely to meet our targets. Rather than a leader we have become a laggard.

And now your government faces a decision about the Teck Frontier tar sands mine. If we are to have any chance of being considered a climate leader, we must reject the folly of adding even further to the climate crisis.

I am quite frankly embarrassed that a country as rich as ours is failing its responsibility to the international community. Indeed, as a resident of Alberta, the pollution province, the prime agent of our delinquency, I am doubly embarrassed. This would not be the case if our government would accept the gravity of the crisis and take measures to transition us from where we are (heavily dependent on fossil fuels) to where we need to be (a low carbon economy). Unfortunately it is instead doubling down on oil. It is clinging to the past.

Therefore, whether or not we are to hold our heads up on the world stage depends on your government. I urge you to make the decision in the interests of all of us and reject this project. As for we Albertans, the very best thing you can do for us is to creatively and generously assist us in the essential transition.

Sincerely
Bill Longstaff

cc. The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
    The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
    Greg McLean, MP Calgary Centre