Canadian Oil Might Just be Good for the Environment, and the World

Climate change is real and it is man made. There are over 7 billion of us on this planet and we consume more than ever before. Our needs and desires are expanding faster everyday and mother nature can barely keep up. We face multiple existential crises’ in climate change, extremism, threat of nuclear and biological war, environmental damage and many others.

Oil is one of our major addictions that does enormous damage to our environment and contributes massively to climate change. We love oil. We use tons and tons of it daily. We commute, transport, generate energy, keep ourselves warm using oil or related products. This addiction will not go away easily. It must go away however.

To end this addiction we need to change the ways we source our energy by switching to more sustainable and clean energy resources. The switch to a more sustainable form of energy will have to be gradual and it is already starting to take shape in form of efficiency, solar, wind and thermal etc. Homes are greener than before with energy efficient equipment and renewable energy in many cases. Cars, trucks and trains are becoming electric. This change is speeding up as awareness and cost of climate change rises.

We still need oil though, and we need lots of it. Where this oil comes from is very consequential and will have a big impact on the future of our planet. Understanding this is the key to battling our existential challenges including and especially climate change. We must look at beyond just the environmental damage that oil can cause – CO2, deforestation, spills or many other damages. CO2 is not the only problem oil creates.

One major problem oil creates is economic or plainly money. Oil means money and generally speaking a lot of money. Who gets this oil money is very consequential to the safety and well being of our planet and environment. Oil in the hands of governments that regularly accused of authoritarianism, corrupt or tyranny does not bode well for our planet. Many of these governments use oil money to buy weapons, pay off mercenaries/terrorists or export extreme ideologies or in many cases spend it lavishly. Some would love some nuclear weapons to assure the survival of their regimes or destruction of their nemesis. Environment is not even their top priority – their own survival, the survival of their authority is. These pose threats that can devastate the planet much faster than CO2.

Question before us is: does it make sense for Canada to pay such countries to buy their oil? Then we try to sell them stuff – including weapons – to get some money back? We have plenty of oil, we need oil, we use oil, so why not just use our own oil while we can. Any additional environmental damage from oil sands due to processing etc is more than compensated by taking those massive profits off the tables of dictators and corrupt regimes. More oil supply means lower prices for world oil and developing nations can benefit.

One counter argument is that oil money means corruption and big corporations benefit the most. That maybe true but big corporations are benefiting already in a much bigger manner under corrupt dictatorships. A democratic Canada is much better equipped to deal with cash flow from oil. It doesn’t matter which Canadian party is in charge in Ottawa, even the worst government according to anybody’s opinion is better equipped to deal with this – potentially corrupting big money item – than all of the oil money dictators. 

Secondly, using our own oil means money stays in our pockets and we can invest in more sustainable forms of energy. In order to speed up the switch from oil to renewable, nothing helps as much as money does. Many countries including China and Japan are world leader in renewable energy not because they care about the environment more than we do but simply because they have the money to invest in renewable energy. We on the other hand live off our credit card and sit on our oil. Being fiscally irresponsible is not going to help the environment. In the end, when it comes to the issue of climate change the ones with the deepest pockets will have the most say on how we handle environmental issues. 

Let’s think outside the box. In this capitalist world we have accepted money to be our universal God, and we cannot afford be careless with it. Canadian oil can be a blessing for the world and for us. We should use it. In fact we should only use Canadian oil and stop importing oil all together except perhaps from some like minded democratic countries or after its been refined. This will help our economy and the environment by giving us more control over the gradual switch to renewable energy. A pragmatic, practical and holistic approach towards the use of Canadian oil will help us fight climate change much more effectively than simply abandoning it.