Don't be so sure that Gateway's dead!

I won't believe Gateway is dead until I see it miserably expire first hand and get a chance to check its pulse. Your alleged sources aren't good enough for me, Andrew, nor should they be for anyone. It is irresponsible to encourage complacency by rolling the dice on what you think an irrational villain like the oil industry is or is not likely to do, given that they control the federal and provincial government, and have a tendency to hubris, to say the least. Wait until it's dead, then pronounce it so. It won't fit in a coffin if it's still kicking and screaming.

A More Pessimistic View

I read this Tyee article after reading something in the same vein on counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/19/the-great-pipeline-scam/

BigOil Inc has an unholy grip on power of every kind (political/ legal/ economic/ military/ police) everywhere in North America at least. When it comes to making the final decision on building these vile pipe-lines, I sense we are not yet at the part where the fat lady sings and we all shuffle for the exits knowing our fate.

Arrogance will be their undoing.

What astounds me, when I hear the proponents of either pipeline, is the sheer arrogance they display and their attempt at ridiculing anyone who questions their economic theories. This arrogance is palpable and offensive. It is getting harder to listen to any of them when they attempt to distort the debate, hide facts that don't help them, and try to ridicule others.

I am so fed up with Alberta oils execs. and their minions that I'm about ready to put my foot into the T.V.. What a bunch of fat cat morons who think the are the smartest people and know what is good for the rest of Canada and particularly B.C. I wouldn't buy a used gun from any of them.

Climate change is a dirty rotten communist plot dontcha know

Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama’s campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about “green communitarianism,” akin to the “Maoist” scheme to put “a pig iron furnace in everybody’s backyard” (the Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels). That climate change is “a stalking horse for National Socialism” (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists’ go-to website, ClimateDepot.com).

Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate change “has little to do with the state of the environment and much to do with shackling capitalism and transforming the American way of life in the interests of global wealth redistribution.”

See told ya!

There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.
 
He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”

Smart!

Not much smarts to strip mining tar sand and drilling holes in Alberta!

Interesting...

Alberta seems to be meeting resistance from every quarfter, in marketing its tar sands bitumen. I do not doubt that we will need the tar sand oil in the future, nor do I doubt that it will be exported to China.

Exporting bitumen does seem a lot like exporting raw logs, however. I distinctly remember Peter Lougheed talking on the subject of water exports, saying that we would be exporting jobs.

In the 18 years I have lived in BC, I have heard the magic words "value-added" hundreds of times. They are just a token to gods of job creation.

Alberta might find it easier to pipe refined oil from the tar sands. And maybe not, but it is worth re-evaluating. Otherwise, Alberta runs the risk of being seen as the dirty little slut on the block who will do business at any price.

Interesting...

Alberta seems to be meeting resistance from every quarfter, in marketing its tar sands bitumen. I do not doubt that we will need the tar sand oil in the future, nor do I doubt that it will be exported to China.

Exporting bitumen does seem a lot like exporting raw logs, however. I distinctly remember Peter Lougheed talking on the subject of water exports, saying that we would be exporting jobs.

In the 18 years I have lived in BC, I have heard the magic words "value-added" hundreds of times. They are just a token to gods of job creation.

Alberta might find it easier to pipe refined oil from the tar sands. And maybe not, but it is worth re-evaluating. Otherwise, Alberta runs the risk of being seen as the dirty little slut on the block who will do business at any price.

I hope you're right, Andrew

I really do hope that you are eventually proven right in your assertion that Gateway is dead. Where you get that from, I'm not sure I quite understand. I'm glad you think that the Alberta oil execs are reading some kind of writing on the wall by local opposition. (I sure hope Mr. Harper and his pal Christy Clark are reading the same writing.) If you are indeed correct, then it means that ordinary people, pushed to desperation, who read between the lines of rhetoric and propaganda, CAN eventually have an effect on the way our country is run. But from where I stand right now, it doesn't look like that. But I respect your knowledge in this area and I'm hopefully crossing my fingers that you're right. (And BTW, thank goodness for the American decision about Keystone.)

Northern Gateway Pipeline will not just be wished away

I respect Nikiforuk's intuition, opinion and writing skills very much however one cannot write away the Enbridge proposal.

Like many others in this province I am committed to keep myself informed and to do what is necessary to support First Nations communities and Canada's economy in the long term.

We cannot just hope Big Oil will go away and like Granville I too believe we will use our conventional and non-conventional sources of petroleum resources. The question is, how little can we use and still manintain our own economy and how long can we guarantee future generations of a supply of this valuable finite and diminishing non-renewable resource?

I spent some time finding out who the players are on the Enbridge side of its proposals.

I found that 4 of the 12 Enbridge Board of Directors live in Florida, 2 others in California and the others in Calgary or Toronto (Thornhill-which is Toronto's 1% neighbourhood).

Harper seems to make a distinction after returning from his recent trip to China between foreign interests against Enbridge's pipeline proposal and foreign interests supporting the pipeline proposal. Those foreign interests supporting the proposal are those investing money in Canada. Harper's democracy is about money...1 dollar, one vote.

All About More Royally Oily Money for the 1%.,

Quote:

"(For the record, the oil industry is not a jobs machine. It is the world's most capital-intensive industry and earns more than 10 per cent of the world's GDP. But it only employs less than one tenth of one per cent of the world's workers. In Canada it accounts for but 1.8 per cent of the workforce.)"

In that one revealing bit of great information, Andrew, you tell the tale.

pwlg

Could you direct me to any info on the major banks that are involved with this pipeline

Keystone and Gateway

As someone who went to Washington believing it was a lost cause, but wanting my grandkids to know I'd tried, something deep inside me says Andrew may be right about the Gateway. Maybe just because after the Washington commitment, my partner and I have grown in courage and determination. When we watched the documentary Spoil...which shows the magical spirit bear rainforest Embridge wants to stick its dirty pipes through it was confirmed for us again.

We intend to live...and die if necessary, for a liveable sustainable future....again, that too might be a lost cause. But Keystone has been delayed....and in that time we've bought, there are lots of things people who love this planet can do.

As for my husband and I, we intend to do as many of them as we can. It was Tim DeChristopher got us to Washington with his speech to the court before sentencing: "This is an act of love and it can only grow. Join me" We did and have benefited so much from it.

so for all readers who want Andrew's prediction to be true. Join us in opposing this Gateway folly.

OK, write about consumption

Andrew, this is a great point. And one I have agreed with for a long time (and yes being dangerous to the 1% is a good thing) "When the greens eventually focus on consumption instead of production and recognize the limits of renewables, they'll become truly dangerous to the status quo."

So maybe it is time for some great in-depth Tyee reporting on where and how tar sands oil get burned, and what could be done to greatly reduce that consumption. No?

kindly define centrist first

The environmental campaign also highlighted the centrist and lackluster nature of Obama's presidency. Greens make up a sizeable chunk of the president's support and they used the pipeline to push for energy reforms during an election year. They played smart politics.

Obama is no centrist. He is an opportunist and a fraud seeking advantage any way he can. His agenda has been clear from entering office, getting in bed with the economic advisors from yore, warring it up wherever he sees Imperial advantage, promoting a security and surveillance state beyond the confines of his own nation, and not prosecuting the outgoing regime for its many and various crimes.

Within 100 days of office, anyone paying attention knew he was a sham. Anything he has does that can be opportunistically spun to reflect the interests of the people was carried out ONLY to preserve his political hold.

Good article all the same. What I think should be noted, however, is that understanding Stephen Harper is very easy. Everything Harper says is a lie or a misrepresentation working against the interests of Canadians and the country.

Like lynn noted above, the relative lack of employment return in the oil industry was excellent; I've read similar accounts of the military industry as well. Together these largely symbiotic industries are bleeding us all dry.

igbymac

Facts like this really don't matter. The Harper government throws out "facts and figures" hither and yon, without regard to reality. Joe Oliver at one point mentioned 100's of 1000's of jobs, and trillions in GDP. And there are people who just naturally believe them.

And Canada's opposition parties do not seem to have the cojones to argue the Harper fantasies.

Leadership

I continue to be at times amazed and others times totally dissapointed that there is any support for Harper/Clark and their congregation.They are the radicals who are trashing the planet. How could anyone in their right mind support this destruction, unless they too have an addiction to fantasy. It's like watching the Tea Party of the north in action. Is this what Canadians want in leadership?

Canada needs to get out of NATO NOw No Fuel for American Empire!

Since the Second World War, the US has:

1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them democratically-elected.

2. Attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20 countries.

3. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

4. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.

5. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The "enemy" changes in name – from communism to Islamism -- but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power or a society occupying strategically useful territory,

The main enemy is at home What we are up against!

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The "enemy" changes in name – from communism to Islamism -- but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power or a society occupying strategically useful territory, deemed expendable, like the Chagos Islands.

The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, is little known in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications, nominally freest journalism and most admired academy. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – western terrorism – are Muslims is unsayable, if it is known. That half a million Iraqi infants died in the 1990s as a result of the embargo imposed by Britain and America is of no interest. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of western policy ("Operation Cyclone") is known to specialists but otherwise suppressed.

While popular culture in Britain and America immerses the Second World War in an ethical bath for the victors, the holocausts arising from Anglo-American dominance of resource-rich regions are consigned to oblivion. Under the Indonesian tyrant Suharto, anointed "our man" by Thatcher, more than a million people were slaughtered. Described by the CIA as "the worst mass murder of the second half of the 20th century", the estimate does not include a third of the population of East Timor who were starved or murdered with western connivance, British fighter-bombers and machine guns.

These true stories are told in declassified files in the Public Record Office, yet represent an entire dimension of politics and the exercise of power excluded from public consideration. This has been achieved by a regime of un-coercive information control, from the evangelical mantra of consumer advertising to sound-bites on BBC news and now the ephemera of social media.

It is as if writers as watchdogs are extinct, or in thrall to a sociopathic zeitgeist, convinced they are too clever to be duped. Witness the stampede of sycophants eager to deify Christopher Hitchens, a war lover who longed to be allowed to justify the crimes of rapacious power. "For almost the first time in two centuries", wrote Terry Eagleton, "there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life". No Orwell warns that we do not need to live in a totalitarian society to be corrupted by totalitarianism. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake proffers a vision, no Wilde reminds us that "disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue".

It isn't just about the 1%. The other 99% use gas-powered cars

If you really want to shut down the oil industry, all you need to do is to trash your cars. If you rely on your vehicle as much as I rely on mine, you are part of the problem too. Everyone is locked into the oil economy, whether we like it or not.

I look forward to car-free Sundays, like they had in Holland in the 1970's, due to the oil embargo. Are you ready for that?

Don't get me wrong; I don't want the northern pipeline at all. What we want and what we need are two different things.

Where is the oil going to?

To Rocky Racoon: Michael Parenti has a book out called "The Face of Imperialism" which outlines the American strategy to control most of the small nations of the world through the strategies you suggest. A good read.
Nobody here (I don't think) has mentioned the eventual disposal of the refined tar sands oil after it goes to the refineries in Texas, etc., some of which Andrew says are at least partly owned by Saudi interests. I don't understand what the American or Canadian government's are thinking. We import X% of the oil we need in Canada. The US imports X+% of the oil it needs from Canada and the middle east, etc. Yet both countries export oil. I'm not in favour of tar sands development, but, if it is going to continue because Alberta says so, why are we not exporting our tar sands oil along the pipe lines that have already been built to the refineries in Ontario? (Yes, I know right now they can't handle tar without significant modification.) The same applies to the US. Why are they exporting refined oil? And who are they sending it to? What "friend" of the US has no oil of its own and needs it? What "friend" has powerful connections in Washington?

Granville

Everyone is locked into the oil economy, whether we like it or not.

But few of us are in a position to implement substantive change away from the oil economy. Certainly there is some sense of proportionality missing in your 'we are all guilty' view despite it being fundamentally correct, no?

I've lived long enough to watch first-hand the early '70s oil crisis hit and, despite the blip in the late '70s toward more fuel efficient vehicles which faded in short order, nothing has changed. Same roads. Same 25 mpg vehicles. Same lack of public transportation, local and national.

What we need is a wartime measures approach toward changing our ways from our dependence on oil to renewable and sustainable energy. That is not forthcoming from the people who could effect change.

Obama, the leader of the global economic engine, had a prime opportunity coming into office. Instead he squandered it by giving Ford, for one example, cart blanche with their bailout funds. In doing so he squandered the opportunity to remake the American auto industry. Instead of leading the world, he chose a page out of the standard governmental playbook: Look after the boys who brought you into power.

Harper, well, he is just a disgrace. Canada and its inhabitants are meaningless to him. I don't think there is any other way to more succinctly interpret his demented behaviour.

All this is the result of

All this is the result of fraudulent monetary economics that totally change the dimensions of trade goods, life's realities, and elementary logic. T

The banks are licenced to "create" money from the air so the powers, the international corporate mafia, can commit destruction to maintain the perceived value of that non existing, imaginary money.

Of course, we need money for trade, so we don't have to carry trade goods around, as we used to in Europe after WW2 when money was worthless and the only worthwhile trading symbol and commodity were cigarettes, but money is supposed to represent realities and not the poker chips of capitalist gambling casinos, the stock and money markets.

Present monetary economics have absolutely nothing to do with physical realities, but with the use of pseudo religious symbols to enslave and warp realities to serve the dictatorial powers of international gangsters who are controlling our governments and universities.

This is a typical example of "wealth can not be created, only taken", used by miseducated economists to empower corrupt politicians, exactly the same way as the priesthoods of history have always licenced conquest, colonization and mass murder in the name of religions.

The only difference is in the scale of the crime wave, now the biggest in history and ready to take over completely, unless humanity wakes up and sends them to hell.

Starting with our universities' economics departments the Priesthood of the Money God who exists only as computer figures to rule and destroy.

Ed Deak.

Still hopeful

Quote:
In the end, water concerns legitimately and fairly killed the irresponsible route over the Ogallala aquifer just as water concerns have already killed the Gateway project.

This piece of info raised my eyebrows and my spirits! But... we'll see if this is the case.

One of the many tragedies of the whole situation is the waste of time and money that goes into defending something so ridiculous and criminally insane as the pipeline proposal. The human resources that are wasted on the process would be so much more beneficial if they were spent moving us out of the toxic mindset of consumption and the resulting economic support of the criminals that benefit from our laziness and bad habits.

David
Victoria VI

Keystone and Gateway

What a wide-vision well-written analytical article. Thank you

Who exactly are these Greens

Who exactly are these Greens ,who you expect to save humanity from it'self ?

Otherwise a very thoughful piece

Not so optimistic

Andrew and Maryinga, I simply cannot be as optimistic as you. The delay of the Keystone XL and the forces opposed to the Northern Gateway aren't (yet) enough to stop such projects, only postpone them.

We had a moratorium on this coast's tanker traffic, yet this has somehow disappeared.

David Suzuki once pointed out that for all the battles that environmentalists have won on any given issue, a single loss ends the conflict in favour of the exploiters.

I and many BCers will struggle against it, but I think its a done deal. Hope I'm wrong, but the power elite, Liberals included, and especially the Alberta and big business Harporites have already made their decision. The pro oil development forces are now revamping their assault to remove anything and anyone who would block their push.

Unlike Keystone, the Enbrige and Kinder Morgan routes to the coast are entirely in Cdn. territory, allowing the Harperites to push through, despite strong opposition in the region. Only vote and riding losses might alter their decision.

Perhaps spreading awareness of who experiences real risk vs. what groups benefit most from such projects and then joining or supporting groups like the DOGWOOD initiative at notankers.ca (Canuck base, not "radical foreign") could help to mobilize forces, but...

Geoffrey May

Geoffrey May asks, "Who exactly are these Greens?"

For Stephen Harper and co, the greens are apparently the new reds.

But what makes you buy a car?

In many cases it is because of the convenience or necessity related to getting to your job.
So let's look at jobs first. How convenient for the oil industry that two people instead of one are often required to pay the bills in a two car family. Why? Because wages in real terms have been steadily falling since the 70s. Why? Because of the globalization of the ownership of resources. (and it goes without saying because of the usury of private banks controlling our national money supply) Why? Because governments are now controlled by corporate money and corporate media. Why? Because the very idea of 'representative democracy' was molded by the rich to control the votes of the poor and middle class while giving the illusion of 'democracy'. It is inherently corruptible. So what? So if you sing love songs to the current political system which is in reality an oligarchic shark surrounded by corruptible pilot fish you can never expect to find freedom and prosperity in a paradigm controlled by your oppressors. So I am re posting this link to the Swiss system of government in the hope that you will read past the main topic of the article and see how we here in British Columbia would be so much better off both socially and financially if we adopted a similar system. Forget about the rest of Canada - that is too big for us to confront or control. What we need is the country of British Columbia with a government controlled by the vote of the people. What we also need is a natural and productive coastline unthreatened by the dreams of small men in Ottawa and beyond.
http://www.currentconcerns.ch/index.php?id=925

And Bravo to whoever it was above who mentioned 'car free Sundays'. Would our Harper government ever support that? Nah, it would lower the price of gas. (which incidentally is sold for about 12 cents a gallon in Venezuela, prices we will never see because we are locked into 'Free Trade' agreements with America and Mexico so we can't control our prices for gas or anything else. We have so much natural gas here that if we controlled it and gradually switched over to NG vehicles fuel costs would be a quarter of what they are now. Plus the environmental benefits. We are being cleaned out here like a drunk in a card game. Or more aptly, by the fringe of corruption which is endemic in our current system of government.) Eventually people here are going to see that BC would be much better off as an independent country ruled by a directly democratic government.

bravo, aDriftwood

Eventually people here are going to see that BC would be much better off as an independent country ruled by a directly democratic government.

BRAVO!

Independence, igbymac?

Naw! Just nationalize the energy industries!

If all B.C. decided tomorrow to scrap their cars,...

...they would still demand a pipeline built. That is because none of this is about B.Cers driving cars. The pipeline won't effect that one iota. I suggest that the CBC and other media interview as many arrogant spokespeople from the pro Enbridge foreign interests. These twits will turn people off more than anything. Even their ads are insulting and a bunch of lies. After the HST scam people are not quite as gullible.