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Robert McLeman is an associate professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.
As a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., I teach introductory environmental studies to hundreds of students each year. I impress upon them the need to use less fossil fuels, to reduce our ecological footprints, and to live with nature and not at its expense.
I train them how to think systematically about environmental problems, and to look for innovative solutions to them, like making urban spaces into oases for pollinators and using backyard rinks to teach people why we should care about global warming.
I practice what I preach: I ride my bike to work in the dead of winter, I buy locally grown foods, and the coffee in my cup is fair trade organic, of course. In short, I am what many of you would call a “greeny.” My politics are less overtly green, but still lean in that direction. (Don’t get me started on how I feel about Revenue Canada auditing the David Suzuki Foundation while our finance minister goads them on.)
It was important to give you the preceding glimpse of where I’m coming from, given the statement I am about to make: I support the building of pipelines.
We do need to transition away from fossil fuels to other sources of energy, and the sooner, the better. But the key term here is “transition,” not “eliminate.” We are going to need fossil fuels for years to come. I will too. I will soon be presenting research at a professional conference in Tampa, which is too far away for me to cycle. I can buy carbon offsets for my flight, as I do for the natural gas that heats my house, but fossil fuels are still required to make the plane go. That won’t change anytime soon.
We also ought to be eliminating the subsidies, tax breaks,and assorted taxpayer-funded gifts governments dole out to oil companies. This would bring much needed rationality to energy markets and our consumption of fossil fuels. It might also defuse environmentalists’ hostility to the oil sands and to Keystone XL, for if the only thing funding those projects were consumer spending, there would be no one else to blame.
But even with such changes, Canadian consumers and industries will still need oil and gas products. We therefore must ensure that the future transportation of oil and gas is done in the safest way possible to protect the ecological health of our natural environment and the general well-being of the Canadian public.
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