Above: Singer Neil Young at a press conference for the “Honour the Treaties” tour, a series of concerts to raise money for the legal fight against the expansion of the Athabasca oilsands in northern Alberta. By MARK BLINCH / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Oil industry should clean up its act, not attack Neil Young
It’s time for our governments and leaders to come to terms with the shortfalls of the tar sands, says leader of Environmental Defence.
Attacks by the oil industry on Neil Young, as he supports the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in their defence of their treaty rights in the tar sands, are not surprising. Oil companies are making lots of money and want to make more of it. They aim to keep their costs as low as possible and addressing environmental and social concerns might cut into their profits. What is more surprising and shortsighted is the cheerleading for these views by some in our governments.
Behind the abysmal environmental and climate impacts of the tar sands can be found countless treaty violations, swaths of First Nations land that is no longer accessible for most of the year thanks to tar sands development, and devastating local pollution to the air, water and ecosystems. First Nations are on the front lines of tar sands development and are justifiably fighting for their rights. They are doing Canadians and the world a huge service as they stand up to protect their traditional land and livelihoods.
The questions we need to ask our decision-makers are: Why tar sands at all costs? Why are First Nations rights being trampled, climate and environmental protection steamrolled, and forward-looking economic policy ignored?
The tar sands exist because of a perfect storm of conditions that meant that, for a window of time, some of the highest cost, highest carbon oil in the world made economic sense to dig up and burn. This is changing fast, but instead of investing in the clean energy economy that will inevitably power the 21st century, the Canadian government and the oil industry have their heads in the sand as they desperately cling to last century’s dirty energy sources.
First Nations and concerned Canadians (and there are a lot of them) are not the only thing standing in the way of reckless tar sands development. The economic risks of ongoing investment are also becoming evident. The International Energy Agency has acknowledged that two-thirds of global fossil fuels have to stay in the ground to avoid the worst of climate change. As a result, there is growing concern within the investment community about just how much access industry will have to these reserves.
In addition, there are emerging policies in other countries that will restrict market access to the dirtiest fuels. For example, the Obama administration has clearly stated it won’t approve the Keystone XL pipeline if it adds to the level of carbon emissions, while the European Union is looking at a fuel quality directive that would penalize tar sands bitumen for being dirtier and more harmful to the environment than other fossil fuels.
While pipelines and expansion are being pitched as job creators and critical to economic growth, Canadians see through this. Making up less than 2 per cent of our GDP, rapidly expanding the tar sands hardly seems worth the damage they are doing to human rights, our climate, communities, reputation and economic alternatives. For the growing hydrocarbon price tag in our own back yards and that of our neighbours, look no further than over 20,000 treaty violations documented by the Beaver Lake Cree in the tar sands, the summer floods in Calgary and Toronto, monster typhoons in the Philippines or ruptured pipelines and derailed trains.
It is time for our governments and leaders to come to terms with the shortfalls of the tar sands, which are some of the highest polluting oil in a carbon-constrained world. We still have time to catch up in the clean energy economy, but it is only going to get more difficult the longer we wait. Right now, many countries around the world, including the U.S., are investing many times more per capita than Canada in industries and jobs related to the clean economy. Canada is at risk of being left behind.
Instead of pouring money into massively expanding the tar sands, let’s invest more of the wealth they and other industries are producing in solutions, such as renewable energy technologies that lessen our dependency on oil, new manufacturing processes that are cleaner and more efficient and changes to transportation systems that improve people’s lives and reduce pollution. All of these initiatives are creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs around the world and it is time that Canada had our fair share.
Rather than attacking Neil Young, the oil industry should be working to clean up its act, and our leaders should be working to transition to a modern economy powered by safe, renewable sources of energy.
Tim Gray is Executive Director of Environmental Defence.
You can support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Defence Fund athttp://www.honourtheacfn.ca/
Neil Young’s oil sands comments draw support and criticism