A line must be drawn between obtuse environmental orthodoxy and the rational need for responsible energy development
Led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) recently announced a million-barrel-per-day reduction in oil production, action only cartels can take to limit supply in order to raise prices — the cost to the global economy be damned.
It will inevitably lead to higher North American gasoline prices as refineries gear up for peak-driving summer months. Even more damning is that it exposes the inherent fallacy of the anti-energy policies of Canada and the United States, which have two of the largest oil and gas reserves on the planet.
Their determination to squelch oil and gas development in the name of climate change gives Saudi Arabia, Russia and other OPEC members the whip hand on prices for key energy supplies and stimulates already high inflation rates. Canada and the U.S. together unwittingly surrender leverage about the price of a resource vital to our economy. Does this make any sense?
It only gets worse. China and India relentlessly expand the use of coal — the major carbon pollutant — giving only faint lip service to carbon emission aspirations, probably scoffing internally about the superb con job they are playing on the virtue-inclined West, which is also expected to pay for any actual emission reduction by “developing” countries like China and India.
For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/enough-is-enough-of-energy-absurdity