The hype concerning Canada’s tarsands oil is troublesome on several levels, even though the dirty stuff is promoted by supposedly reputable newspapers.
That it’s called “decently priced petroleum” is a gross exaggeration when we know the truth, i.e., oil’s price seems to have nowhere to go but up.
For example, the current price, $106.23 per barrel, is about 7 times higher than the average price in the 1990s ($15.67) and 2.4 times higher than the average price from 2000 - 2009 ($45.10). If it only doubles by the end of the current decade, we’ll be paying about $200 per barrel in 2019. Decently priced? Realistically priced? Over priced? You’ll get to decide.
["Discover Canada in one pair of pants while it's still here": photo GH]
That our oil “doesn’t come from a country where they chop people’s heads off every Friday afternoon” is also a gross exaggeration, and more. Though this isn’t the place or the time to fully discuss sins of commission and omission country by country, I’m certain close inspection of Canada’s own reputation would produce some very ugly stories, some of which we still hear about on occasion.
So, enough of the hype. Though our Prime Minister might travel the globe in search of buyers for tarsands oil and come home with fistfuls of contracts and petrodollars, we must consider that this time of hyping the tarsands will only be followed by much harping.
For example, what will Canadians think of the rising cost of an oil-based lifestyle, even though it’s their very own ‘Made in Canada’ tarsands oil that’s still powering regular trips to the big box store for jumbo bags of McCains frozen fishsticks and potato patties?
I say people will harp like crazy.
Most people know the old saw, ‘the best time to plant a tree is forty years ago.’ So they’re sure to know that the best time to transition from oil-based, large scale economies to more sustainable models is forty years ago as well.
With decades of advance notice (the average price per barrel was $2.91 in the 1960s, $6.68 in the ‘70s, $21.44 in the 80s), the rising price of oil is steadily causing North American industries to shrink or look for ways to shrink. As a result, unemployment levels are rising and more and more people are questioning where the good, secure jobs will come from in the future.
Unfortunately, governments have been slow to tell the story that our future economy and resultant lifestyle will be much different than our past ones, based as they were for several decades upon cheap oil. With national debt at an all-time high, our Canadian Prime Minister jets to Asia for tarsands contracts, hoping he can later return home to deliver a ‘business as usual’ message to his followers, and not have to come up with a Plan B.
With family debt in Canada also at an all-time high, it won’t be long before the average person realizes that business as usual is a fool’s game, and that the time to start living small is well past. Only with great difficulty will Canadians begin to downsize their homes and cars, reduce spending, pay down debt and save money for tougher times ahead.
All things considered, 2012 may well go down in history as not only the ‘Year of The Biggest Hype’, but also the ‘Year of The Loudest Harp’.
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Please click here to read My Morning Rant PT 1
Please click here to read about ‘getting small before you get low’
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