westcanforum

Well, I look at it differently. Rejecting an industrial project of this magnitude is an economic loss to a country that will face serious future decisions about rising costs in areas like health care.

It`s not likely I`ll ever convince anyone this project is desirable. At least you are not calling me a 'racist' all the time like that lying puerile twit Romero. The hearings for NG will begin next month and you`ll get to hear all arguments, but opponents will dominate it of course.

Of course it would be an economic loss.  That being said it would only be an economic loss to the present value.  The future value of the resource will likely inflate and the oil isn't going anywhere.  There is nothing but corporate interest and/or greed that requires that it be extracted and sold immediately.

Thus, the only argument I perceive as being truly based on Canadian interest is opening a new market to provide price competition.  If energy prices outpace inflation as virtually everyone expects that they will, time will have the same effect as the pipeline and doing nothing has no environmental impact.

You might convince me.  It depends how good your arguments are.   

I suspect that much of the money that will payout the Natives to support the pipeline comes from foreign sources as well.  There are many American and Chinese interests in the pipeline are there not?

I don't see a problem with the environmental lobby being capable of playing on an equal footing to the oil sands lobby and attempting to buy the pawns who can be bought.  As you know, it is guaranteed that the developers will do this.

My stated hope had nothing to do with these.  I hope that some of the interested parties will stand on principle and make a decision based on the merits of the project, independent of what they are offered as payout.  I don't know if it will happen or not, but I hope it does.

XJ, what you fail to see is the benefit of maintaining the area pipeline and tanker free.  There is no economic gain in this, but there is a gain.  Compare it to the international trade of antiquities.  There is huge money in private trade in that market, but very little in placing artifacts in a museum for public display.  But museums provide protection of and education on the artifacts.  They have a socio-cultural worth that exceeds their financial worth.  You would have a hard time arguing that private ownership is better, even though it generates more revenue growth in a "fossil" market.

Maintaining the area in its current state is similar.  Once you have built the pipeline, you can never go back to what it was before.  There is a powerful interest in preserving it in the state it is currently in.  The oil can be sold later, but you can never buy back wilderness or habitat that has been developed or worse, destroyed.  Thus, the area may have an environmental worth that exceeds its financial worth.  You reject the concept of environmental worth and reason only in financial worth, but environmental worth exists and we will see what value it has to our society in this context.

Canada is one of the few remaining vestiges of wilderness, relatively untouched by man.  Many Canadians have a spiritual relationship with that natural state which would be difficult to explain to those who don't have it.  It has a value to Canadians.  It should come as no shock that those who do not possess this resource in their own country would nevertheless like to see it preserved in others.

Exactly.  So you can either assume that it is mercenary environmentalists with bad policy, UN with worse policy, or as I originally stated, you can follow the money trail and find that it is corporate interests with good policy.

Thanks.

Now lets argue about environmentalism!

Personally, I think if the intent was really to benefit the environment, policies would focus first on the low hanging fruit.  Canadian policy would be that everyone shuts the hell up about the rest until the residential building code is modified to require airtight vapour barriers and R-40 insulation.  Biofuels are ridiculous by comparison to the benefit that would bring. 

Unfortunately, the construction lobby is much stronger than the insulation manufacturing lobby, so no real changes will be effected.

Most environmental policy is set by business interests and market segments.  It very often doesn't make sense. 

I know you believe that they are the result of failed sociopolitical policies, but in fact most of the time it has little to do with that.  At face value, biofuels seem to make little sense, but they make a lot more sense if you follow the money.  Agriculture is a large economic sector, but it is relatively flat in terms of growth.  People pay a certain amount for a food type and they won't really pay more.  Biofuels provided an unprecedented opportunity to add value to a product with very few development opportunities (bioengineering aside).  Quite simply, there is a huge amount of grain production in Canada at stagnant or negative growth.  It costs a lot to support an industry with zero or negative growth, so added value is welcomed both by the industry and by the government economists.

Thus biofuels are actually a product of capitalism with a light powdering of environmental green glitter to help with the sell.