Climate Crossroads: When will they ever learn?

Climate change is making heat events more frequent, more severe and longer lasting.

Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, is not mincing words on human-induced climate change, as has been his habit. Recently on BBC News, he stated that humanity needs to stop burning massive amounts of fossil fuels as soon as possible! His comments were a response to the current European heat dome, leading to temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many capital cities.

Just watch the news to see and hear about the impacts people are having to deal with. Imagine it here. Estimates by the scientific community show unequivocally that climate change is making ‘normal’ heating events more frequent, more severe, and longer lasting.

One is reminded of the BC heat dome a few years back that killed over 600 people. Is that what we want to see again, and more frequently? That’s the thing about the atmosphere; it doesn’t have borders like land.

Climate change effects can happen anywhere, a result of greenhouse gas emissions anywhere on the planet. “Our world is facing two crises: A climate crisis pushing us deeper toward higher temperatures and closer to catastrophic tipping points, and an energy crisis exposing the folly of a world hooked on hydrocarbons. On the surface, these crises may seem separate, but they share the same destructive origin: fossil fuels.

And they demand the same answer: A fast, fair transition to clean energy and a surge in adaptation, resilience and climate justice for those already facing climate harm.” Antonio Guterres So, where does the current issue of Alberta’s drive to build a million-barrel-a-day Dilbit pipeline to the BC coast fit in? The answer is it doesn’t.

The big oil magnates and politicians who are promoting this project are on the wrong side of history, and committing a crime against humanity at the very least. We don’t need any more fossil fuel infrastructure costing billions of dollars, which may never get paid for as the fossil fuel market collapses out of necessity. Fossil fuel resource extraction and greenhouse gas emissions have to be severely restricted, a fact that will become increasingly evident as the impacts become more apparent, severe, deadly and costly, now and in the next decades.

What are these pipeline promoters thinking? Obviously not about the welfare of our children and grandchildren. More obviously about their bottom line, profit and dividends.

So is that what we are going to allow them to do, damage irreparably the life-supporting capabilities of the Earth for the sake of money? Are we going to sacrifice the health of the planet? People need to rise up and fight this crazy and totally unnecessary project to build another pipeline to the BC coast.

Isn’t one enough? Well, that is the problem, isn’t it? For the oil corporations and big business in general, there is no such thing as enough; there always has to be growth and more profit.

It is the pipeline to hell! William Lytle-McGhee is a member of qathet Climate Alliance Join the Peak’s email list for the top headlines right in your inbox Monday to Friday.