Alberta—the Old South in the Cold North

Reading the book All God's Children, I encountered a section about the relationship of the American South to the Union just prior to the Civil War. As I read on, I realized it was remarkably similar to the relationship of Alberta to our federation today.

Prior to the Civil War, cotton was king. It was the country's major wealth-producer, particularly for the South—America's richest men lived in the Mississippi River valley—but also for the North, from textile mills in New England to banks in New York.

But by the 1850s, the Southerners felt they were under siege. They saw the economic and population growth in the North as a threat to their interests. Most troubling, the North paid undue attention to the trouble-making abolitionists. The cotton industry was founded on the also very profitable slave industry. By challenging slavery, the abolitionists threatened both the economy and the way of life of the Southerners who in turn saw this threat as huge ingratitude for all they had done for the nation.

Furthermore, as the 1860 election approached, the South feared the Republicans would elect their nemesis, Abraham Lincoln, who had famously said, "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." When Lincoln was indeed elected, the South saw the betrayal as complete, and secession became the only answer.

The South was solid. Ending slavery threatened every white man. As the Edgefield Advertiser stated in 1850, "It is African slavery that makes every white man in some sense a lord." Southern politicians had for years exploited the issue to fire up their constituents. As one planter put it, "You have to say but nigger to the south to set it on fire, as one whistles to a turkey to make him goggle." In the words of a wealthy planter's wife, "nobody could live in this state unless he were a fire-eater."

Substitute "Alberta" for "the South," "oil" for "cotton," "global warming" for "slavery," "environmentalist" for "abolitionist," "Trudeau" for "Lincoln," "Kenney" for "Southern politicians" and "conservative" for "fire-eater" and you've got the relationship between Alberta and the rest of Canada today. History does indeed seem to repeat itself, if in strangely related ways.

Southern distrust of the North was fully justified just as Alberta's distrust of the rest of the country is justified today. The abolitionists did intend to shut down slavery and environmentalist do intend to shut down fossil fuels. In both cases the economies, to say nothing of the ways of life, of the two societies were and are seriously threatened. Unfortunately, the threats were also fully justified, both on the right side of history. Slavery was long overdue for its demise and fossil fuels are long overdue for theirs. But, like the Southerners of the day, most Albertans are exhibiting little introspection. They see the assault on their prize industry, but they refuse to recognize that it is justified and demands accommodation, and all they've got for a leader is a fire-eater. Change can be hard, and change of this magnitude is very hard indeed. So we hear angry voices and talk of secession.

Serious Albertans don't take secession seriously and serious Canadians wouldn't go to war with them if they did. Canadians have a gift for compromise and that is required here, yet you can no more morally compromise with global warming than you could with slavery. Prime Minister Trudeau's challenge is as daunting as Lincoln's.

"Alberta is in danger of becoming the Don Cherry of Canadian politics."

Nothing quite like a good one-liner. Wisdom in a few words. And Graham Thomson, one of the better columnists writing about Alberta politics, started my day off with a beauty in a CBC column about the current Alberta-Quebec contretemps. The column was titled "Alberta Premier Jason Kenney might be bilingual but he needs to learn a new language" with a sub-head that asks the pertinent question "Canada and the world are changing. Can Alberta keep up with the conversation?"

And the one-liner: Alberta is in danger of becoming the Don Cherry of Canadian politics, unable to deal with change.

Comparing the province to the hockey guru whose bigotry finally caught up with him—a classic old white man who can't deal with the changing face of Canada—is as delicious as it is timely. Not that Alberta is bigoted—far from it—but its inability to deal with global warming represents the same kind of reactionary mindset as Cherry's. Unfortunately, its also far more problematic. You can't fire a province.

Would It Help To Dump Alberta?

The G20's Climate Transparency group issued its annual report this week grading all member countries on their climate performance and found them all wanting. The report said only about half the countries are on track to meet their targets for cutting emissions by 2030 and those targets are much too low in any case. And who were the worst performers? Australia, South Korea and—no surprise—Canada.

We are indeed slackers on the global warming front. Not only will our existing plans leave us short of our 2030 goal, but that target is only half what it needs to be. The report gave us high marks for introducing a carbon tax and for implementing tougher environmental reviews for major projects like pipelines and mines, but criticized us for approving the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (for the second time). The report noted we are among global leaders in phasing out coal power but lag on energy use and emissions from cars and buildings. Only two other countries use more energy per dollar of economic production.

That brings us to Alberta, the pollution province. It has 70 percent more emissions than Ontario with less than a third of the population, and whereas Ontario's are declining Alberta's are rapidly increasing. Furthermore, it contributes almost 40 percent of Canada's emissions with only 12 percent of the population.

There have murmurings about separation in the province, so what if we gave it a nudge and sent it on its way. Our emissions would drop 40 percent overnight and we'd be well on our way to meeting our goals. But would we be any better off?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Alberta would still be out there, prolifically pumping out greenhouse gasses, perhaps the world's highest per capita emitter. And those emissions would continue to contribute to global warming every bit as much as they did before. The fact is we are all in this together. Global warming doesn't recognizes borders. We have to deal with this challenge as human beings, not as members of our various tribes: Albertans, Canadians, Americans, Nigerians, Japanese, whatever.

So we have to deal with Albertans' excessive emissions whether they're in or out. They make us look bad, true, but the answer is not to dump them, but rather to help them kick the habit of high fossil fuel dependence. And that, considering the province's belligerent, reactionary premier, is one hell of a challenge. But it must be taken on. In the meantime, our reputation as a climate change slacker will persist.

Alberta after Fossil Fuels

Alberta and oil are almost synonymous. But if the province is to do its share to avoid the apocalypse that global warming threatens, it must kick the oil habit, or at least the fossil fuel habit. The transition to greener energy is much harder for this prairie province, of course, because of its particular dependence on oil and gas or, if you prefer, bitumen. Nonetheless, we Albertans must face up to the challenge.

Fortunately, Alberta has alternatives to fossil fuel dependence. Oil and gas in themselves have multiple uses other than as fuels. Petrochemicals are used to manufacture thousands of products essential to the modern world: plastics, medicines, fabrics, detergents and other cleaning products, fertilizers, cosmetics, furniture, appliances, electronics, synthetic rubbers, asphalt, pipes, home siding, and yes, solar power panels and wind turbines. Almost all pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents are derived in some way from petrochemicals—they provide both the medicines and the bottles they come in. 

In the 1970s, the Lougheed government encouraged the growth of an ethane-based petrochemical industry and it is now one of the largest manufacturing industries in the province. Rachel Notley’s government instituted a petrochemical diversification program establishing a new propane-to-plastics industry. Inter Pipeline Ltd. and Pembina Pipeline Corp. are now building propane-to-polypropylene facilities north of Edmonton. This is one NDP initiative Jason Kenney has had the good sense to maintain. Alberta provides royalty credits to companies in exchange for building facilities that turn feedstocks into plastics and other products. Not all subsidies to the oil and gas industry go toward fossil fuels.

Another intriguing initiative is producing hydrogen from hydrocarbon reservoirs in situ. Most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide released as waste products. If the hydrogen is produced in situ, these gasses would be left in the reservoir. A team of Alberta engineers presented such an in situ method at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona this summer, turning heads around the globe. According to University of Calgary professor David Layzell and energy researcher Jessica Lof, "There is no region in North America that is better positioned than Alberta for cost-effective, large-scale production and distribution of zero-emission hydrogen fuel." Meanwhile, the province's drilling prowess is being applied to a geothermal pilot project that could help unlock the province's considerable geothermal assets.

Alison Cretney, managing director of the Energy Futures Lab, insists that Alberta is almost ideally positioned to capitalize on the decarbonization of the global economy, both because of the skills and education of its population and the opportunity to apply both to a host of new challenges. "We just need to get beyond that view that when we talk about oil and gas it's extract and burn," she says. "The world moves on without us. And we'd miss a huge opportunity for Alberta and Canada to lead that change, to lead the transition, rather than it ultimately catching us unaware down the road. It's disrupt or be disrupted."

Quite aside from oil and gas, Alberta has other arrows in its quiver such as tourism, forestry and, of course, agriculture. The province produces half of Canadian beef and a quarter of its wheat.

As is typical of a mature economy, most Albertans work in services, including finance. The TSX Venture Exchange is headquartered in Calgary, and the city has a robust industry serving the securities market. It also has the second highest number of corporate head offices in Canada after Toronto. Edmonton hosts the Canadian Western Bank and ATB Financial, the only major Canadian banks west of Toronto.

Clearly, Alberta can look forward to a bright future beyond oil. But embracing a future of dramatic change is always difficult. People tend to cling to the past they know rather than embrace a future they don't, especially when that past is based on one of the most lucrative industries this or any province has ever experienced. It can be frightening, and Premier Kenney aggravates this fear when instead of presenting Albertans with a vision for the future, he doubles down on bitumen and then goes on the warpath against Justin Trudeau and assorted environmentalists, even fanning the flames of separatism in order to gain leverage. The wrong leader at the wrong time, holding us back.

Albertans will have to rise above their reactionary government. The potential ls there. And this is a very entrepreneurial place—at one time making money off bitumen was a pipe dream. The feds can help. During the federal election campaign, Trudeau promised a "Just Transition Act" to ensure workers can get the training and support they need. Alberta should be a central focus of that effort.

But how smooth or rough the transition is will depend heavily on Albertans willingness to accept change that must come. As Blake Shaffer, an economist with the University of Calgary and a former energy trader, puts it, "I hope that rather than putting our head in the sand and focusing on where we were 10 or 15 years ago, we embrace the skills and strengths that we have and go forward." I hope so too, Blake.

Can Trudeau Make a Future with Alberta?

Life is full of little surprises. Often pleasant ones. I encountered such a surprise this week reading the Calgary Herald, not a paper usually on my wave length. And yet here was this op-ed saying some of the most sensible things about Alberta's aversion to anything Trudeau I've heard to date. True, it wasn't written by a Herald staffer but rather by Lisa Young, a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. Still, there it was.

Trudeau could, Dr. Young said, "follow in his father’s footsteps and give the region a figurative middle finger" or, alternatively, he could "make the accommodation of Alberta and the transformation of its economy a central focus of his government."

Wow! Here I was reading, in the Calgary Herald of all places, support not for Alberta revving up for more bitumen production but for transforming the Alberta economy—the approach that has seemed obvious to me but which I thought would not dare be expressed in this province above more than a whisper.

And this indeed is where Trudeau could provide great assistance to Alberta (and Saskatchewan), exactly where it is lacking now—leadership in transforming the economy off carbon dependence. Dr. Young went on to say that "Trudeau must also present a convincing vision for an alternative future," and pointed out that Alberta has rich potential outside of bitumen.

She emphasized that presenting that vision will be challenging. And indeed it will. The first challenge to overcome will be his name. Trudeau is despised by many Albertans for no other reason than he is Pierre's son, he of the infamous National Energy Program. But beyond that he has to deal with two premiers that have little to offer in the way of  climate change programs. Alberta had a half-decent one but the new government has trashed it and offered little as a replacement. Furthermore, the UCP are digging the province deeper into the hole of bitumen dependence while going to war against critics of their policies.

Meanwhile the attitude toward Ottawa is toxic. In a televised pre-budget address, Premier Kenney blamed the Liberal government for Alberta's troubles saying it had "actively campaigned against our province's vital economic interests." Saskatchewan's Premier Moe responded to the federal election with a letter demanding among other things cancellation of the federal carbon tax, rather like asking the feds to fight global warming with one hand tied behind their backs. As to separation from Canada, the two premiers know it would be folly for their provinces yet exploit it to gain leverage.

Provinces producing the major cause of the greatest threat to humanity ought to have powerful programs to deal with that threat. They don't. And they seem much more interested in demanding than giving. Facing intransigence with no quid pro quo on offer, the prime minister has his work cut out for him. All he can do is offer to help them shift their provinces in the right direction and hope they have the vision to imagine a future outside of fossil fuels.

The Climate Case for Impeachment

Will they or won't they? Impeach the Donald, I mean. As the U.S. Congress moves glacially along the impeachment path, I propose impeaching him not on the grounds of his political and legal sins but on the grounds of his unfitness to lead a major nation at a time of anthropogenic climate change. His ignorance and incompetence threaten the security of all of us, not just his own people. I submit the following evidence:

• He has been quoted as referring to global warming as a "Chinese hoax." While he has modified that view he continues to insist global warming is not man-made.
• He has withdrawn his country from the Paris Climate Agreement.
• He has appointed officials to positions of authority over climate-sensitive agencies that are clearly unfit. He most recently attempted (but fortunately failed) to appoint Kathleen Hartnett White who has been described as a "fossil fuels evangelist" to the position of chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.
• He is systematically reversing environmental and climate protections in order to maximize production of domestic fossil fuels.
• He has consistently ignored, buried and undermined climate science. He even encouraged a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator to go on television and argue against it.
• He killed the Clean Power Plan, designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and replaced it with the much weaker Affordable Clean Energy rule.
• He has muzzled government scientists to prevent them from expressing views that illustrate how human behavior affects climate change.
• He has withdrawn funding for important and successful conservation programs even in direct contradiction of instructions from Congress.
• He withheld $2-billion of the $3-billion the United States promised to the Green Climate Fund which helps developing nations reduce their emissions. (Other countries have generously made up the shortfall.)
• He has interfered in attempts by states to implement emission-reducing measures; for example, revoking California’s authority to set its own tailpipe-pollution standards and suing the state over its cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should suffice for a moral if not a legal impeachment. Unfortunately only the U.S. Congress can bring him to account. Too bad, because the rest of us have a solid case.

The unbridgeable gap: Alberta and Saskatchewan

One result of the recent election is a certain amount of angst about Alberta and Saskatchewan failing to elect a single Liberal. How to ameliorate the alienation felt by this pair of provinces is exercising the imaginations of pundits right and left. It reminded me of a recent post I wrote entitled "Living with the apocalypse." I referenced a New Yorker article in which the author insists that when it comes to global warming, the gap between what is politically acceptable and what is scientifically necessary is too great. We are simply unable to bridge it, so we might as well stop pretending we can deal with the threat and prepare for the coming apocalypse.

It seems to me that Canada presents a perfect example of this unbridgeable gap. What Alberta and Saskatchewan demand politically departs from and conflicts with what is necessary to deal with climate change. While both provinces demand unreserved federal commitment to oil exports, neither is willing to make a similar commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This leaves the country with an awkward problem. If we meet their demands we will have to in effect surrender to global warming. If we don't meet their demands, they will continue to throw tantrums and threaten to secede. It's doubtful that they would—it won't be easier to get oil to tidewater through a foreign country than through a fellow province—but they can cause serious disruption if they don't get their way.

We could of course give them what they want and leave dealing with global warming to everybody else. In fact you hear a lot of that kind of talk in Alberta. We only contribute two per cent of the world's emissions so what does it matter if we cop out? Of course it matters a lot. We, along with the Australians and the Americans, are the industrial world's three top emitting peoples (over three times the global average). Furthermore we, like the rest of the Western world, have both contributed longer to the problem and enjoyed more of its benefits. If we failed to accept our responsibilities it would not only be dishonourable, it would set an appalling example to those countries much less able than us to make sacrifices. What would Greta think?

I am a democrat and the heart of democracy is compromise, but sometimes compromise is unacceptable. We cannot compromise with global warming. It will not sit down at the table and negotiate with us. I believe we should accept our responsibilities like adults and proceed with the measures necessary to deal with the threat. We should also listen with brotherly concern to the very real and legitimate fears of the good people of our two Prairie Provinces. We should be creative and generous in assisting them in making the transition from carbon dependency to renewable energy. But surrendering to global warming should not be on the table.

Apparently I'm a Quebecker

Vote Compass recently published a survey of Canadians' attitudes toward a variety of issues. The results were broken down by province, scaling how much respondents agreed or disagreed with different propositions. Not surprisingly, the survey found that Albertans and Quebeckers frequently have widely divergent views. On the spectrum of agree or disagree, they were often at opposite ends.

Interesting to me personally was that although I am an Albertan, and have been for most of the last five decades, my views are generally much closer to those of Quebeckers.

For example, on the question of how much help the oil industry should get from the Canadian government, only Alberta and Saskatchewan were at the "somewhat more" end. Quebec (and I) leaned furthest toward the "much less" end. On the subject of a carbon tax, needless to say Alberta and Saskatchewan were along the "somewhat disagree" end. All the other provinces, except Manitoba, were on the "somewhat agree" end with Quebec (and I) most in agreement.

This was a common pattern: Quebec on one side, Alberta and Saskatchewan on the other, and the rest of Canada in the middle. Indeed, the trio were often outliers. It would be expected on energy and environmental issues, with Alberta hung up on oil and Quebec the strongest province on the environment, but it showed on other issues as well, including handguns and the treatment of indigenous people.

One issue where the two drew closer together was Quebec independence. While all provinces were opposed (including Quebec), Alberta was closest to Quebec at the "neutral" end. (I suspect, however, that their motives were somewhat different.) They also agreed that less should be done to accommodate religious minorities and unions should have less influence. I can agree with them on the former but strongly disagree on the latter.

Does the greater accord of my views with Quebeckers than with my fellow Albertans mean I'm living in the wrong province? Not at all. I don't feel particularly strong geographic loyalties. My turf is the Beltline, not Calgary, not Alberta. And, in any case, I have lots of company—hell, in 2015 we elected the NDP. Besides, my high school French has long deserted me.

Living with the apocalypse

Is it time to recognize that we are politically incapable of dealing with global warming? Is the gap between what is politically acceptable and what is scientifically necessary too great? American novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen thinks so. In an intriguing article in the New Yorker, entitled "What If We Stopped Pretending?" he insists "The climate apocalypse is coming ... and to prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it."

I confess my thoughts are increasingly drifting in that direction. The evidence grows stronger and stronger that we have created a crisis, actually a series of crises, that are simply beyond our abilities to solve. Consider a few unpleasant facts:

• The most important country in dealing with the threat, the United States, has an administration that is systematically undoing all the environmental progress that country has achieved over the past 50 years. The president opposes efforts to deal with climate change not only within the federal jurisdiction but at the state level as well and internationally.
• The largest country in South America, Brazil, has a government of climate change deniers, including a foreign minister who has declared it a "Marxist conspiracy."
• Russia isn't about to de-carbonize. Remove oil and gas from its economy and the cupboard is bare.
• The world's largest county, China, has been more progressive on the issue but is heavily dependent on coal and continues apace to build plants. It also feels, justifiably, that being behind Western countries in both development and in creating the problem, it deserves some slack in catching up.
• The three major greenhouse gas emitting peoples in the industrial world—Americans, Australians and Canadians—remain heavily invested in fossil fuels and display little interest in taking the cure.
• Despite the science being clear for decades, we have emitted as much atmospheric carbon in the past 30 years as we did in the previous two centuries.
• At this late date, fossil fuels still provide 80 per cent of the world's energy, and the production of oil and gas rises every year. The efficiencies gained by renewable energy continue to be offset by consumer demand.
• Carbon taxes, promoted by most of the world's economists as the best instrument for dealing with global warming, are often met with fierce resistance by the masses.

The list goes on and on. Good things happen, too, of course: the Greta Thunberg phenomenon, American cities bypassing Washington to take a direct role in climate talks, plant-based products to replace meat, electric cars, and so on. But there is a staggering amount to do if we are to make the transition to a low carbon economy and time is running out. Room for optimism is shrinking rapidly. We may be faced with the inconvenient truth that human nature precludes us rising to the challenge.

Despite his pessimistic prediction, "If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth," Franzen remains surprisingly upbeat. He insists that, despite the destabilization "there’s still a strong practical and ethical case for reducing carbon emissions." At the very least, reducing emissions will lessen the severity of the immediate effects and delay the point of no return. And he points out there is much we can do to make our societies more just and equitable as well as sparing other species from our rapacity. He suggests it's important to maintain functioning democracies and communities in order to minimize the inevitable reversion to tribalism and violence as resources become scarcer and people more frightened. He sees strengthening local communities and reliance on local production offering hope as large scale systems break down.

I admit I find his positive attitude difficult to share. It doesn't take all that much destabilization for people to turn conservative, then fascist, and then violent against the internal and external scapegoats provided by their demagogic masters. But maybe he's right. Perhaps small scale, self-reliant societies could survive the apocalypse.

I'm not going to be around either way, so I'll leave all that to future generations. Homo sapiens has no intrinsic right to its current prosperity and domination, or even to survival. Millions of species have gone extinct, many by our hand, and so might ours. I admit to being fond of our turbulent species and would like us to prosper for many generations into the future, but I'm forced to recognize that if we went extinct almost every other species on Earth would be better off. The dinosaurs dominated the Earth for over 500 times longer than we've been around, but their time finally came. Perhaps ours has as well.

Perfidious America

Early in 2018, U.S. President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, a deal largely negotiated by and signed off on by his own country. Iran had been keeping its side of the bargain and the other five partners were happy with the results. Nonetheless, Trump walked, leaving the impression that a deal with the United States is only good until the next presidential election.

Now the president has betrayed his country's Kurdish allies in Syria. This week he pulled American troops out of northern Syria leaving the Kurds to the mercy of Turkey.

The Kurds are largely responsible for defeating ISIS in Syria, suffering major casualties in the bargain. But it is the Americans who bear the responsibility for unleashing ISIS in the first place. It was little more than a fanatical gleam in the eye of Islamic extremist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until the Americans invaded Iraq and disbanded the Iraqi army, inadvertently providing an officer corp for Baghdadi's fighters—ISIS. The extremist army then went on to occupy large parts of Iraq and Syria. In Syria they encountered the Kurds who, in defeating them, did the Americans' dirty work for them. Now Trump has pulled out American backup, in effect delivering the Kurds up to their enemy Turkey, and running the chance of unleashing ISIS again in the bargain. Friend or foe, no matter, Trump's America will betray you.

The French long referred to England as "perfidious Albion" perceiving England as a nation whose word couldn't be trusted. Now that the U.S. has assumed leadership of the Anglo empire, its current president seems determined to take on the mantle of perfidy.