Last month, Alberta didn’t just announce it had transitioned entirely off coal as an energy source; the province kicked the fossil fuel six years ahead of a wildly ambitious schedule. The scale of achievement this represents defies exaggeration—and contains a warning for oil fans everywhere. […] what happened to coal is coming for oil next.
Virtually every major analyst that isn’t an oil company (and even some of them, like BP) now expects global demand for oil to peak around 2030, if not sooner; McKinsey, Rystad Energy, DNV, and the International Energy Agency all agree. This places Canada in a uniquely vulnerable position. Oil is Canada’s biggest export by a mile, a vital organ of our economy: we sold $123 billion worth of it in 2022 (cars came in second, at just under $30 billion). Three quarters of that oil is exported as bitumen—the most expensive, emissions-heavy form of petroleum in the market and therefore the hardest to sell. That makes us incredibly sensitive to fluctuations in global demand. Think of coal as the canary in our oil patch.
Other than selling mediocre coffee and McMansions to each other, Canada has precious little else. That’s why we cling like limpets to extractive industry: without it, we’ve got nothing because our governments have comprehensively failed to develop much of an industry, preferring to give tax breaks to oil barons and house traders.
There is also West Coast forestry which is going to nosedive as we destroy most of the trees in BC as climate change burns and floods through the rest.
We don’t even own our shitty coffee anymore, and most of our mcmansions are owned by foreign investors.
I was writing a rant, but yeah, I’m tired of our industry being snapped up and run into the ground and important crown corps or public works being sold off for pennies.
We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t get out overnight either, there’s definitely been some movement, lots of strategic plans and investments plus the technology superclusters are working to update our industry, just would like to see the needle move faster and like, more reporting and messaging on what’s being done at each level of government because I don’t feel like we’re generally aware of that.
When the USA stops flirting and goes fully fascist we can become a powerhouse in scientific research and film/tv production.
When the USA goes full on fascism, we’re France.
Unfortunately, we probably don’t even get to be France. We might be Austria though.
I dont think so. America will still want to believe they are good and righteous long after the truth is clear to everyone else. They will victimize far away “evils” in the name of freedom and democracy while keeping up appearances. Mexico on the other hand…
They are fully capable of atrocities up to and including nuking any number of countries and still feel good and righteous. Like many occupiers of France did.
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