The Keystone XL pipeline

Sunday they had a big rally in Washington DC against the Keystone XL pipeline.  I wish I could have been there.  The Alberta oil sands are an environmental disaster and are making a farce of our concerns about climate change.  For the first time in my life I'm ashamed to be Canadian.

Much blame should go to Alberta's Conservative government.  Premier Alison Redford recently had the nerve to say, "It's not good enough to do the easy thing and raise taxes." Well, if raising taxes is so easy why is it so seldom done?  Alberta should have raised its very low income tax and introduced a sales tax (like every other province has) twenty years ago, but Ralph Klein was an anti-tax ideologue, and so is Redford.  If the provincial government has trouble balancing the books, they prefer to slash spending and produce more and more oil.

I recall Alberta's last provincial election when the Conservatives faced a threat from the even more right-wing Wild Rose Party.  What saved them was numerous NDP and Liberal voters who voted for them to defeat the WRP.  I hope those voters are happy now! (If more voters had stayed loyal to those parties, there might have been a minority government and even some real change.)

Some people warn about the dire economic effects of reducing emissions.  I grant that if we reduce emissions more than we need to, there's a serious chance of hurting the economy.  But if we reduce emissions LESS than we have to, it may mean the end of modern civilization.  I know which direction I'd err toward.  For the sake of argument, let's accept that there's a possibility that the experts are wrong about climate change.  The significant possibility that they're right is still enough to justify action.