Pipelines and Protest

Last weekend, in Vancouver approximately 5,000 people marched in protest to Kinder-Morgan pipeline expansion.  As was noted in numerous releases including the CBC, the people gathered in support of First Nation peoples who are opposed to any additional capacity for the pipeline  and the resultant dangers to both the interior and to the coast line of British Columbia.  There was a much smaller gathering of people who are in favour of the expansion. This debate will go on for some time. No matter what the final outcome is -there will be some who will never agree.

It seems to me that that part of the problem is the fundamental dishonesty (or at least the leaving out of pertinent facts)  by both sides. We would be all better served if people admitted that there are legitimate concerns on both sides. The possibility that a decision could be reached that most people could live with increases if we understand all of the facts.

Of course if there is three times as much oil to be shipped through pipelines, across extraordinarily beautiful mountains and valleys - there is an equally increased risk that something will go wrong. There are just too many stories of pipelines developing cracks or breaks. There will be leaks not because the managers of the project are bad people or that the welders are incompetent but because with that much pipe - there will be failures. We know that such projects disrupt the natural movement of animals and no matter what attempts are made to create corridors, the animals will be affected. We know that if there are three times as many freighters in the straits around Vancouver that something bad will eventually happen and when it does it could be catastrophic for generations. Again it is not a matter of incompetence or being evil - technology and humans fail. For the federal government or for the oil industry to even suggest that the risks are not substantial is absurd. They would be better off to admit the risks and then start discussing ways of mitigating them.

On the other hand, the protesters are at the very least being a bit disingenuous when arguing that they are protesting along with and on behalf of First Nations. It needs to recognized that a number of First Nations along the pipeline route as well as number of communities who are active in resource extraction have indicated support for the expanded pipeline; other communities are in negotiations with Kinder-Morgan.

The protesters are also either impossibly naive or wilfully avoiding the realities of their lives. I would find the protest so much more meaningful if they, the protesters, acknowledged that most of them got to the protest via vehicles powered by a petroleum product, that in fact their vehicles are at least in part made with materials derived from petroleum products as are their clothes, their iPhones, tablets and water bottles. In fact a significant percentage of what they touch and use each day is comprised at least in part of a derivative of petroleum. Their food, their furnishings, their very life style is only possible because of petroleum. The argument that there cannot be any increase in the amount of oil that reaches the BC coast - without appreciating that we need to use that oil is a bit childish.

I would agree without hesitation that the pipeline is a bad idea. The risk to the coast or the interior is just far too great. But if we continue to demand petroleum products to maintain our life style, it strikes me that it is probably hard to argue that we should have oil but that no one else should.  It is equally as difficult to argue that oil production should only exist for our direct needs and that oil production companies are not allowed an effective economy of scale.

We need to find solutions - but first we need to be honest with ourselves and those on the other side.