The New Heretics
In the myth of golden past
a cloaked church protected us
from learning that the earth
was really round, and took
her daily course around the sun.
They had to burn a few disputers
or a whole order would collapse:
god, church, king then nobles,
the rest of us compliantly flat.
We learned in tortuous ways
that we were all equal and vulnerable
in the round sway of a savage universe.
Now a new Harper plucks the old chords,
proscribes anathema to all our scientists,
pronounces stern sentence
on all our brave researchers,
exiled to arctic silence.
We must not see the melting glaciers
flood, drought or super-storm.
Oil must be touted as saviour,
jobs and wealth for a barren land,
corporations cannot see an end to profit
or the joy of jobs that find a way
to a greener healthier land.
We are all heretics or eco-terrorists
if we tell the truth in Harperland.
Katherine L. Gordon
February muzzling of Canadian scientists.
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Conrad DiDiodato has left a new comment on your post "Muzzling of Canadian Scientists (poem): Katherine ...":
As the recent price increase at the pumps to $1.30 has shown, increased oil (tarsands or shale or natural gas)production will give producers more incentive to raise prices. Though aggregate demand remains constant prices continue to spike. We're being gouged unmercifully. Katherine is right: it's the ruse of the aristocracies and religious despots of old in a contemporary guise, with the king still holding court and dictating self-serving, self-aggrandizing gov't policy.
The difference between Syrian-type dictatorship and parliamentary democracy in its present form is only one of degree.
Posted by Conrad DiDiodato to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 21 February 2013 11:08
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Conrad DiDiodato has left a new comment on your post "Muzzling of Canadian Scientists (poem): Katherine ...":
See the David Suzuki Foundation campaign to write Obama in order to urge him to nix the Keystone pipeline project.
http://action2.davidsuzuki.org/clean-energy-not-pipelines
Posted by Conrad DiDiodato to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 21 February 2013 16:45
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Thank you for reminding the U.S. government that Canadians support strong
action on climate change and a clean energy future.
The more letters sent, the stronger our message will be. Please share this
with your friends and colleagues.
http://action2.davidsuzuki.org/clean-energy-not-pipelines
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The false gods that are Alberta’s oilsands: Walkom
A new study uses an old theory to show that Alberta’s iconic oilsands have clay feet.
Jeff McIntosh
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS
An oilsands facility is seen from a helicopter near Fort McMurray,
Alta., on July 10, 2012. Albertans, writes Toronto Star columnist Thomas
Walkom, are discovering, the iconic oilsands "staple" has feet of clay.
Even a brief hiccup in the oilsands boom has sent Alberta's finances
into a downward spiral.
Alberta’s oilsands have iconic status in Canada. They are magnets for foreign capital and sources of great wealth.
They are credited with keeping this country’s economy alive in the midst of a global slump.
Politically, they
symbolize the new Canada — one governed by a prime minister determined
to encourage resource extraction at the expense of virtually everything
else.
But as Albertans are discovering, the icon has feet of clay. Even a brief hiccup in the oilsands boom has sent the province’s finances into a downward spiral.
And the future remains
uncertain. Suddenly, the politics of climate change have made Alberta’s
carbon-emitting bitumen less welcome in the United States.
More to the point, technological changes that favour the production of cheaper shale oil and gas, are transforming the U.S. from an energy pauper into one of the world’s big petroleum players.
To put it another way, Canada’s biggest export market no longer needs the tarsands quite as much as it did.
Into this mix comes a new study that tries to make sense of the oilsands phenomenon.
Actually, The Bitumen Cliff
is an oldish new study in that it uses the classic work of political
economist Harold Innis, one of the first to undertake a systematic
analysis of what makes the Canadian economy tick.
To Innis, Canada’s history was dominated by natural resource exports, which he called staples. That Canada has exported raw materials is hardly novel. What Innis grasped, however, was that these staple exports created a pattern of development, both political and economic, that over time was hard to escape.
To use the language of one of his students, the Canada that Innis described kept enmeshing itself in a “staple trap.”
Vast quantities of
money would be spent (usually by government) on infrastructure needed to
extract whatever resource was in demand. And then, suddenly, things
would change.
Maybe the commodity
would fall out of fashion — as did felt hats made from Canadian beaver
pelts. Or maybe technology would make the staple irrelevant, as the
steamship did to masts made from Canadian white pine.
In all instances, Canadians would be left paying the costs.
The Bitumen Cliff applies this analysis to the tarsands. Again, vast quantities of money are required, not just to extract the heavy oil but to transport it by rail, pipeline or ship.
Again, other economic
activities are given short shrift. In this case, the high dollar created
by Canada’s soaring oil exports has eaten into the ability of
manufacturers to compete abroad.
And again, the political system wraps itself around the staple, with Ottawa’s Conservative government gutting environmental laws for fear that they might interfere with pipelines and resource extraction.
Can this last? Unless tarsands oil is a very unusual staple it cannot. Prices rise; prices fall. Tastes change; things happen. We are beginning to see some of that now.
The authors suggest that what they call the carbon trap will be the contradiction that finally sinks the tarsands — that the world will turn away from forms of energy that emit high levels of greenhouse gases.
When this does happen, they say, we will once again be left holding the bag — dependent on natural resources that are no longer in demand — having failed again to develop the kind of integrated and balanced economy that can keep this country on an even keel.
The Bitumen Cliff, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is written by Canadian Autoworkers economist Jim Stanford, Polaris Institute director Tony Clarke, consultant Diana Gibson and — the Innisian in the crowd — Carleton graduate student Brendan Haley.
Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
3 comments:
As the recent price increase at the pumps to $1.30 has shown, increased oil (tarsands or shale or natural gas)production will give producers more incentive to raise prices. Though aggregate demand remains constant prices continue to spike. We're being gouged unmercifully. Katherine is right: it's the ruse of the aristocracies and religious despots of old in a contemporary guise, with the king still holding court and dictating self-serving, self-aggrandizing gov't policy.
The difference between Syrian-type dictatorship and parliamentary democracy in its present form is only one of degree.
See the David Suzuki Foundation campaign to write Obama in order to urge him to nix the Keystone pipeline project.
http://action2.davidsuzuki.org/clean-energy-not-pipelines
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