Just like Boris Johnson, Alberta’s premier Jason Kenney, has argued that now because of the war in Ukraine we should open the floodgates to Alberta’s oil and gas to flood Europe. Alberta would benefit from that (in the short run at least), but that is not the way to go. That will lead to more misery not a solution. More of the same is rarely a solution to any problem.

It is clear that we have made a lot of mistakes.  We have got suckered. Just like every other addict we bought the lies, got sucked in, and now find we have a hefty price to pay. Our addiction to fossil fuels has come at an awesome expense. We have only started to pay that price. What can we do to get off this train?  As Bill McKibben pointed out,

“Sun and wind come from everywhere. They are ubiquitous and omnipresent. A world that runs on them won’t have the equivalent of Vladimir Putin. There is no way for a character like Putin to embargo the sun or block the wind. So it is fake realism to pretend the way to stand up to him is to somehow produce more of this stuff. The way to stand up to Putin is to move the world to the way we know it needs to go anyway if we don’t want it to overheat even more disastrously than it already has. This is a choice point. This is a pivot point—the kind of place where we could make a big shift. We’ll see. And Canada is one of the places where we will decide. The oil and gas industry is using this moment to push for more offshore drilling.”

We can follow the advice of the oil and gas industry as we have done so often in the past and then pay the price again, as we have also done in the past.  We need to get advice from disinterested parties who don’t stand to make fortunes from our decisions. The pushers of oil and gas don’t have our best interests at heart. This is the time for the right decision, and I believe, we must make a change. Right now. The old ways will merely deepen our dependence on fossil fuels. We know where that leads. We should not listen to dealer in the back alley.

We could listen instead to Canada’s Minister of the Environment the Honourable Steven Guilbeault. And guess what? He actually is honourable. He has pointed out clearly that we need to bust the habit.

Now I am not clean here. I like to travel a lot.  My environmental footprint is pretty deep. I have a son who works in the oil and gas industry. I don’t want to see him unemployed.  But, I think we as a community must work with the people who work in the industry to shield them from the blows and direct them to better industries where their talents can be better used. We as a society need to do this together. We can’t just let them hold the bag. That is not justice. And if we don’t have a just society I don’t want it.

It will also demand sacrifices. But we must remember the sacrifices the people in Ukraine are making. They make our sacrifices look like pretty thin gruel.

I think a lot of people are willing to pay for higher gas prices if it means we can help the people in Ukraine. Pundits always assume that we are all selfish. I don’t think that is always true. This war is a reminder of our problem.  The war in Ukraine has helped to drive up oil prices, but as McKibben reminded us, the sun is still delivering energy at the same price it did a week ago or a year ago. Same with wind. And the prices of both will be the same next year. Why do we keep paying for the one energy that keeps skyrocketing up from time to time as regularly as wars?

This is a good moment to make the move that we must make anyway. How many more chances will we get before we cause irreparable damage to our planet. That is the approach the oil and gas industry tried to foist on us as they have done so often in the past. By now we know– there is a better way. Let’s take it.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  told us 6 years ago that we had to cut our emission increases to zero by 2030.  Just recently, their latest scientific report said they were wrong. It is now worse than they thought it would be. We have to make those changes by 2025. That is less than 3 years!  And the alternative as we knew 6 years ago, and still know today, are devastating.  Just ask the Ukrainians. The world acknowledged this 6 years ago. Now we know it is even more urgent. This is the time to do it.