How does climate change affect Western Canada’s energy producers?
Is Global Warming an alarming environmental wake up call for mankind or is it the biggest money scam of all time? Are you a Denier, a believer or a bystander? Under the current pressure, should the oil industry known in environmental circles as “Big Oil” run for the hills and close up shop, or should they make a firm stand against the movement or adapt and just go along for the ride? Is the environmental movement the new religion of the times? How do all these factors affect Western Canada and its energy based economy?
At first, I had a title on my blog page “Global Warming – how it affects Western Canada”. I still had not written its contents for months and I had a disclaimer of sorts saying “check back soon – still researching and Writing”. As I checked my blog I kept reminding myself to write the body to this global warming topic, I knew what I wanted to say, but why was I hesitating? I guess like many I could not put my finger on the real issue, I mean, the real underlying issue of why this movement was so powerful and what was the reason for its genesis?
At first I was going to write about how this attack on Alberta’s oil industry was going to hinder or destroy industry in the province and was going to list all the reasons why Western Canadians need to fiercely fight this global warming hysteria. After researching for months and focusing on the issue concerning Western Canada, I can clearly see an underlying hidden agenda and a shift in direction concerning this movement.
Its amazing how public opinion can change in three years, lets look back at the issues of the day just a half decade ago, in the United States, the war on terrorism, nine eleven, war in Iraq, illegal immigration. In Europe, high unemployment and economic distress and the new European Union. In Canada, political corruption, Adscam, low economic output and dollar, crime in large cities, heath care costs and wait times.
This years G8 summit is being held in Germany and the main issue is climate change, what happened to the previous G8 summit issues of war on terrorism and aids in Africa?
Skip forward to today, the environment and climate change is paramount to more or less of a degree in all three regions of the industrial world. What happened to bump environmental concerns to the top of the list and what absolute proof is it all based upon? Is long range computer modeling so accurate that no one can argue against it? Are the climate scientists really pulling the world crises alarm or does Armageddon support their existence and funding? So many questions and not enough answers, that is what makes this debate so interesting.
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Are you a Believer a Denier or a Bystander?
The Believer:
The environmental Believer is one who sees the polar bears drowning, massive ice sheets breaking away melting and falling in to the ocean, sees events like the Indonesian tsunami and hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans and says “see the proof is unequivocal”. These people don’t want to debate the issue and use words like “Denier” and “the debate is over” and the classic “do it for the children”. The believers believe that the United Nations is the global government authority and that this consortium of nations has no agenda except for world harmony and truth. They also believe the IPCC is an organization of the world’s best scientists who all agree that there is no doubt and if mankind does not do as they say the world will end as we know it. How can anybody argue against this powerful movement?
The Denier:
The environmental Denier is one who cannot see the truth, this person, even when presented with the proof of fact, still for some reason does not believe. The Denier is someone who is in the pocket of “Big Oil” and will gladly engage in the practice of polluting the planet in the name of greed and profits. These people have no concern for future generations and “their children”.
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The Bystander:
The environmental Bystander is someone who listens to both sides of the argument and tries to keep an open mind. These people can see reason and misinformation from both sides of the debate and do not fully understand or have not been presented with enough information to move them into one of the opposing camps. These people are neutral like Switzerland and believe that the extreme direction of either direction will be harmful in some way. It’s a toss up, save the planet by changing the climate or drive successful economies to financial ruin.
The Debate – Climate change:
Wipe away all the external confusion and the core of the debate is whether or not carbon dioxide CO2 production by man is artificially warming the planet beyond our control.
To understand this issue, what both the Believers and Deniers need to know is the basics, they cannot even agree on some basic issues. Since CO2 is a naturally occurring gas in our atmosphere and oceans, is the additional production by man enough to tip the balance of the chemical makeup of our planet? The environmental Believers say definitely yes, even though it is not fact based, they say how could it not affect the balance of our atmosphere?
Even the gas humans exhale while breathing is mostly Carbon Dioxide and trees absorb CO2 as food. How could more of a concentration of this gas be harmful? One side of the debate is that mans contribution is the cause of the worlds future destruction and the other side says mans contribution is so small that it would not have any effect and besides they believe that CO2 is not a climate change trigger.
The confusion gets even more confusing:
Some environmental Deniers also believe that carbon dioxide (CO2) follows temperature and not the other way around. Credible climate researchers and scientists have proven that as the global temperature increases or decreases CO2 follows about 800 years after. In other words as the planet warms, carbon dioxide will naturally increase and as the planet cools CO2 levels will naturally decrease.
The global warming scientists say greenhouse gas production from industry and mankind is the cause and the other set of climate scientists say temperature variations is a natural occurrence. How can the world’s best scientists have so different and conflicting views? Who is right and who is wrong?
Pollution versus greenhouse gas:
This is the most misunderstood issue surrounding the climate change debate, a typical global warming supporter would step out onto the street of Toronto or Montreal and look up into the sky, and they see pollution and smog. This same person then looks down at street level and focuses on the cars idling in the street. They see the tailpipe on the car and know that the stuff coming out of the tailpipe is bad, real bad. They then turn to their friend standing beside them and say “we have to do something about this global warming”.
The important issue these people have a difficulty separating is that greenhouse gases are not pollution and toxic pollution is not carbon dioxide. Since these gases are usually created from the same source most people cannot distinguish between them. What the Believers do not understand is that pollution and greenhouse gases can be separated from fuel and energy for an additional cost. Since most people in North America are not willing to pay for green or clean energy, this debate will continue.
The end result of the Believers not knowing the issues are calling for industry to reduce output and some radicals are calling for industry to be shut down and actually believe that their government should be forced to step in and legislate the shut down of energy producing companies. People must understand that carbon dioxide is not pollution before any meaningful progress can be made concerning global warming.
Climate propaganda:
During my information investigation to write this piece, I wanted to read and watch all the professional and big money environmental productions that I could. I set my PVR at home to record all programs with keywords like global warming, climate change, carbon, environment etc. Here is a review of some of the most popular:
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An Inconvenient Truth – by Al Gore
This was one of the first that I had watched, I was amazed at the skill and delivery of Al Gore, he really is an excellent spokesman for this cause. While watching this documentary, I was impressed with the larger than life CO2 graph and all the scientific data that showed unequivocally that man-made CO2 production drives up temperature. This documentary shows us all the dire consequences of our actions and made a demanding call for change. Al however did not give us any reasonable solution to this problem but made a compelling case that this issue is paramount. This program was so powerful that it has prompted some schools in North America to show this documentary to elementary children, I guess the best way to convince someone is to teach them when they are young and impressionable. After watching, I felt that somehow I was previously misinformed about the issue and wondered how man could continue down this path of destruction.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
This documentary was almost the complete opposite to An Inconvenient Truth and told us that all scientists do not believe the global warming scenario and actually went on to present scientific data that showed CO2 was a result of natural temperature change whether the earth was getting warmer or cooler. Artic ice core samples, CO2 Studies and sun spot data showed temperature as the cause of change and not carbon dioxide. After watching this documentary I was starting to wonder what the truth really was and knew that I definitely needed to find out more information before I could make a logical decision.
Forecast Earth with Dr. Heidi Cullen – Climate Expert
This is a regular broadcast series from the weather channel and I was looking forward to seeing some unbiased programming. Well, I was wrong and basically this program goes on to show and also present itself as credible, that yes, global warming is real and man made.
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Exposed: The Climate of Fear – Glenn Beck reporting
This program tried to dispel or cast off all the misconceptions that are flying around out there. It debunked Al Gore and his program, It also laid blame to the United Nations IPCC scientists and their agenda to generate funding by proposing fear among the masses. This program was quite interesting and in-your-face type of programming. It basically wanted to show that yes, there is another side to this story.
Mega Disasters: Mega Freeze
This program has a totally different approach and is based on climate history instead of future computer modeling based on man made carbon dioxide inputs. This program shows scientific data that in the past the Earth has cooled then warmed in a cyclical pattern. The researchers say that the Earth is currently in its warm period and will shift in the future to be cooler – Allot cooler, ice age type stuff where North America will mostly be a frozen wasteland. They say it has happened many times before and will definitely happen again. After watching this program, I could see the truth in what these researchers were saying as it made allot of sense. I realized the more I studied this issue the more confused I became.
What is the Real Solution to Climate Change:
First, since it is obvious that this global warming issue will not go away and no one can agree to what is causing it and if it’s even actually happening. There is just so much misinformation out there for any logical person to believe what anybody is actually saying. This mass hysteria of confusion is fuelling the fire. Some say technology will be the solution, some say carbon dioxide trading schemes like the ones being set up in Chicago and Montreal to trade carbon offsets on the market will be the solution. Some say tax the polluters heavily so they are forced to change their polluting ways. Some say industry and big oil need to be nationalized, hard capped and or shut down to achieve the desired results. Kyoto says share the world’s wealth with developing countries will be the cure.
Second, some say there is no solution because there is no problem.
I guess that before a real solution can be found that the real problem needs to be clarified and then most of the people in the world need to be convinced that it would truly be a global problem.
What does all this mean for western Canada’s energy exporters?
Currently Alberta’s electricity producers and oil companies especially the Oil Sands developments are panicking over the hysteria concerning Global Warming and are probably at times spending more time and effort trying to develop a way to handle this issue rather than focusing on their job of creating energy.
Alberta is the only province or state that has a legislated climate change policy. Under the Alberta plan, the top 100 greenhouse gas producers starting in July 2007 will have to pay fifteen dollars per ton of carbon dioxide produced to reduce emission intensity by 12 percent.
Industry has three options for meeting emission targets, they can pay the fee into a technology fund, they can invest in other Albertan projects that reduce emissions or they can invest in technology that reduces their own emissions.
This environmental policy is forcing Alberta and Western Canada’s energy industry to invest in new energy technologies that will make it more efficient and profitable. Technology is the key and the real solution to the Global Warming debate regardless if the issue is real or not.
New Technology
Western Canada is investing over twenty billion dollars in the following technologies:
Clean Coal
Clean Coal also called gasification or syngas is a mature technology that has been suppressed for over fifty years. It costs about thirty percent more to produce an electrical generating plant than it does to construct a conventional one, but is a clean source of energy if sequestered. This technology is the main key to open the door to electric cars and Canada’s hydrogen economy.
This new Climate Change hysteria will allow companies to develop this technology by making it affordable rather than paying the environmental fine or fee. Any company who pays into the fund will be able to use this money to pay for new technology implementation. This process is achieved through technology called IGCC or TIPS, it strips or captures the pollutants and greenhouse gases from fuel leaving a clean energy source.
CO2 Sequestration
Also known as carbon capture and storage is the key technology that binds and ties the other technologies together. Clean Coal plants will be the capture part and sequestration is the storage component. Gasification techniques will strip the pollutants and sequestration will store these pollutants deep in old oil wells, effectively putting the emissions back where they came from rather than releasing them into the atmosphere.
One of the main benefits of sequestration, other than saving the planet, is that if it’s pumped into depleted oil wells, it acts as a natural detergent and breaks the remaining oil from the porous rock and these old oil wells start producing again. The project by EnCana in Weyburn Saskatchewan has been so successful that the Weyburn field is expected to produce oil for another twenty-five years rather than being otherwise capped or closed.
The ICO2N network of companies operating in Alberta are proposing a carbon dioxide pipeline from the Oil Sands operations in north eastern Alberta to south central Alberta. This project is the key for carbon capture and sequestration in the province. Until now, even if new Global Warming friendly technologies had the ability to produce clean energy plants, they had no where to deposit the captured carbon emissions. Now with sequestration technology they have the ability to produce clean affordable energy and sequester the emissions, saving the planet and making a profit at the same time.
Western Canada is set to profit from this environmental push:
Its ironic, the environmental industry is calling for a shut down or reduction of oil and electricity energy producers, however their plan is going to backfire as this hysteria and climate panic will actually make Alberta energy producers more profit. Go figure?
It really doesn’t matter if you believe or reject the Global Warming Scheme, Climate Change hysteria and panic will make Alberta billions.
Western Canada Energy producers are positioning themselves to take full advantage of this frenzy and even the hard core environmentalists will benefit, even for the wrong reasons.
I am now a Global Warming supporter, Gore and Suzuki, keep up the good work, and spread the Hysteria.
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