Why has Norway built, and continues to build, a healthy future for its citizens; whereas Canada is stupidly living in the past!

65 posts / 0 new

Sun, 2017-11-19 17:01

epaulo13

..i had this posted in the climate thread. what is lacking is political will and that has been the key issue all along.

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Sun, 2017-11-19 17:10

#53

Pogo

I agree with much of cco post. In particular we need to move away from highway tranport to rail (3:1 savings in carbon even before electric rail is considered). Likewise we should put more focus on ocean transport where the choice of vessel can also save 3 times the carbon footprint.

However just as the household 3R's are in descending order of importance (Reduce over Reuse over Recycle), in our goal to reduce emissions, reducing our consumption needs to be far more important than making doing the same stuff but with better energy choices.

Sun, 2017-11-19 18:57

(Reply to #53) #54

WWWTT

epaulo13 wrote:

WWWTT wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:

This was going to be a huge infrastructure project requiring tens if not hundreds of billions over many years investment. Giving Canada huge energy independence!

..yet this plan never was never made public. why is that do you think?

Too ambitous of a plan. Corporate ownership of Canada is more concerned with immediate profits. Not the well being of Canadians

..that whole plan doesn't sound like mulcair at all. but lets say yes for a second and just a second. in the last fed election the plan was never broached at all yet at the end of it, in desperation, he came out against the pipelines.

Not sure how much is my own revisionalist and from other colleagues. But from what I recall being in the pipe trades, Alberta oil was going to be processed in eastern Canada, and there was talk of huge uprgrades and building new ones! Big money involved in doing this, big investment and UA Canada was pushing this every chance. Now if Mulcair was elected PM and somehow the plan went south? Not sure how to answer that?

I myself felt at the time this was also good for Canada! After all, processing our own natural resources in our country keeps more Canadian dollars in Canada. And if oil goes back to $100+/barrel or even 150-200, this issue will come right back front and center guaranteed! However, the electric car/bus/transports are coming!!! Along with better battery tech with greater storage, quicker charging times and many more charging stations and overall convenience, the cost of electric cars will become way way cheaper than ones using engines with internal combustion engines! I've already seen this happen in Nanning, Guangxi, China where my wife is from. Around 7-8 years ago the gasoline engine mortocycle was phased out and is now outright banned! I can buy an new electric scooter there way cheaper than in Canada! But apparently now even the electric bikes there are losing out to the bike share programs that are popular in almost all the Chinese cities. My wife tells me in Nanning now, there is over 200,000 bikes available in the cities bike share program! Her friend is a cab driver and tells us that times are really hard there now for cab drivers. When I was last in China for the 2016 spring festival, we gave up trying to hail cab because everyone was full and we would opt out for a bus! But now that Nannings subway is in full operation, huge bike lanes for electric scooters/pedal bikes and with the unheard of wildly successful popularity of the bike share program, the once well paying trade of being a cab driver in Nanning is becoming a thing of the past.

Sun, 2017-11-19 19:46

#55

epaulo13

..now is the time when we have many options posible. 15 yrs ago we had more and 20yrs even more. the further we go into the future the less options we have to a time when mother nature will force it on us. best to go now with radical change.

eta:

..yes the population has to change it's habits. to me though it's the structures that keep us in the place that need to become a priority. both economic and political. we need to move towards a more participitory way begining at the community level because representative democracy will never allow the changes needed. just look around the world. what model is there to choose from? even norway has to change. we have to make it up as we go along because this is brand new as we've never been in this place before. facing extinction.

Sun, 2017-11-19 20:01

#56

Mr. Magoo

Quote:
now is the time when we have many options posible. 15 yrs ago we had more and 20yrs even more. the further we go into the future the less options we have to a time when mother nature will force it on us. best to go now with radical change.

Naomi Klein, in "The Shock Doctrine", discusses how the right-wing can capitalize on disasters and other crises to advance their politics and interests. But I think she left out how the left-wing can do the same.

"It's peak oil! We all have to sell our car and take our chances getting to work on time with transit!"

"We live in a small world now, so we must all adopt a strict vegan Diet For A Small World!"

"Our political models have brought us to the brink of annihilation! We must promote small units of local power before it's too late!"

Sun, 2017-11-19 20:11

#57

epaulo13

..not just political but financial as well. you criticize because i'm left and suggest it's some kind of scare tactic. but you don't argue the points i make. this my opinion magoo. if you have an alternate theory ? let's hear it.

Sun, 2017-11-19 20:31

#58

Pogo

Are you a chicken little if the sky is really falling?

Sun, 2017-11-19 20:34

#59

Mr. Magoo

Quote:
you criticize because i'm left and suggest it's some kind of scare tactic. but you don't argue the points i make. this my opinion magoo. if you have an alternate theory ? let's hear it.

I kind of did give my theory, epaulo13, and it wasn't intended as an insult to you. But I think that in the same way that the right sees a disaster as an opportunity, so does the left.

Right-wingers who'd always wanted a re-zoning of New Orleans into something they would prefer mostly got their wish after Katrina, and we call this "disaster capitalism".

But if someone suggests that farming meat takes ten thousand times the energy input that farming kale does, and some vegan points out that "yes, Yes, YES, I've been saying this all along" and now we should all eat a vegan diet, we tend to overlook the fact that they're just seizing the moment.

To put it another way, I think there are people who would be delighted if we all had to live in communal housing and take wonky transit and eat a mostly-legume diet. And like the capitalists in "The Shock Doctrine", I think they're biding their time, too.

Sun, 2017-11-19 20:46

#60

epaulo13

..if you don't argue my points magoo how can you say it's the same as the right re: disaster capitalism? you can't just tap it with a magic wand and deem it the same. but you can just say so with out actually providing evidence. i can accept that too.

Sun, 2017-11-19 21:12

(Reply to #60) #61

cco

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But if someone suggests that farming meat takes ten thousand times the energy input that farming kale does, and some vegan points out that "yes, Yes, YES, I've been saying this all along" and now we should all eat a vegan diet, we tend to overlook the fact that they're just seizing the moment.

Well, I did mention the meat bit, so I suppose I should add that I'm a dedicated carnivore who can't wait for test-tube meat to remove some guilt from my diet. I also live in a high-rise and take transit. I'd be happy if transit were better, certainly, but if everyone in Canada drove electric cars, I wouldn't object to them fulminating in traffic.

Sun, 2017-11-19 21:33

#62

WWWTT

I don’t think Canada can ever be a country like Japan Germany or China. Our sparse population and vast geography is too challenging. Look at those countries I mentioned above, they all have greater population densities with better climates. Riding a bike or walking to where you want to go is hands down the best way from point a to point b. Not so easy when you live outside of the town of Buckhorn Ontario and the local pizza shop is a ten minute drive away and it’s January 16 with a windchill of -24C!

But transportation is just one aspect of this thread comparing infrastructure to Norway. Other things like healthcare and education in Canada can easily be improved upon! Utter political leadership failure in these two departments

Sun, 2017-11-19 22:04

(Reply to #62) #63

Michael Moriarity

Mr. Magoo wrote:

I kind of did give my theory, epaulo13, and it wasn't intended as an insult to you. But I think that in the same way that the right sees a disaster as an opportunity, so does the left.

Right-wingers who'd always wanted a re-zoning of New Orleans into something they would prefer mostly got their wish after Katrina, and we call this "disaster capitalism".

But if someone suggests that farming meat takes ten thousand times the energy input that farming kale does, and some vegan points out that "yes, Yes, YES, I've been saying this all along" and now we should all eat a vegan diet, we tend to overlook the fact that they're just seizing the moment.

To put it another way, I think there are people who would be delighted if we all had to live in communal housing and take wonky transit and eat a mostly-legume diet. And like the capitalists in "The Shock Doctrine", I think they're biding their time, too.

I don't quite see the parallel between exploiting the one-time event of Hurricane Katrina for deceptive, selfish ends, and exploiting the empirical fact that meat production makes a large contribution to ghg emissions to persuade people to be more responsible in their behaviour.

Sun, 2017-11-19 22:35

(Reply to #63) #64

Pondering

Pogo wrote:
Moving to an electric car will be a big help (how is the cement produced that build the dam or the steel that built the power lines?), but we are deceiving ourselves if we think it anything more than a bandaid.

Electric vehicles is only one of many solutions that will dramatically decrease our need for oil over the next 30 to 40 years. We will probably never hit absolute zero. Oil will still be in the mix. The point is we already have plenty of infrastructure to satisfy our needs. The economic argument for EE rested on the ability to ship the majority out from the east coast.

The North American oil market is integrated. We buy and sell supplying each other's refineries because north/south transportation makes more sense. Canada is a long skinny strip of land along the US border. The grand majority of us live within a days drive of the border. We don't need energy independence at the cost of our environment. That's what you just don't seem to get. We begin with the premise that it is a serious threat to the environment and a leak is likely to happen. Keystone is an excellent example. You can't expect us to believe that a leak is unlikely.

Personally I believe that most of Alberta's oil is going to have to stay in the ground to prevent catastrope but that is not what is stopping the pipelines. It is 100% all the leaks that weren't supposed to happen that is stopping pipelines. They may be supported by climate change activists but public support is based on the local threat.

Mon, 2017-11-20 02:05

(Reply to #64) #65

Pondering

cco wrote:
And as far as Saudi oil being cheaper forever (I saw someone upthread claim the price of oil would continue to decline throughout our lifetimes), I imagine that whole argument will go out the window the minute war breaks out between Saudi Arabia and Iran. With the Persian Gulf a war zone, Canada at odds with Russia, and Donald Trump and the "America Firsters" ruling in Washington, there just [i]might[/i] come a time when it's useful for Canada to have energy sovereignty and self-reliance.

The US and Canada will not stop trading oil because the networks are integrated in a north/south pattern on each coast. I can't imagine any scenario in which the US would refuse to sell oil to us.

We don't have a trade embargo with Saudi Arabia. We have rules specific to weaponry.

To avoid catastrophic climate change we cannot burn all the oil on the planet. All the oil producers know this and each one wants their oil to be the one that gets to market. This is why the Saudis drove the price of oil down. Those with the lowest production costs will undercut everyone who tries to compete with them. There is a mad dash to sell as much oil as possible.

The overriding barrier to pipelines is not the above. 90% of local opposition is based on the risk of leaks. They may be funded in part by climate change activists but it is not a primary motivation. If it were opposition would be more even around the county.

Fear of leaks in sensitive areas is what stopped it in Quebec. If Trans Mountain is stopped, and I think it will be, it will be due to the fear of leaks. As evidenced by Keystone XL the oil industry is incapable of making leak-proof pipes or unwilling to. As Kinder-Morgan illustrated with their salmon mats they think they can disagree with and not follow regulations.

The oil industry is reaping what it sowed. It constantly lobbied government to reduce regulation. It's ironic. Climate change activists thought they were losing ground. Both government and the oil industry lost the confidence of the people. It was looking like Keystone was going through but the latest leak I'm sure has strengthened opposition. The oil industry is its own worst enemy.

I can't be sure that Keystone and Trans Mountain will be stopped but my bet is on the people. Alberta may have to accept it isn't getting a new pipeline to salt water. I know that will make Albertans very angry and I am sorry about that just not sorry enough to risk contamination of waterways.

Why has Norway built, and continues to build, a healthy future for its citizens; whereas Canada is stupidly living in the past!

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