Jobs, energy, and survival
2016Barry Weisleder 2016-04Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 12 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 12
Let’s talk about jobs and the carbon-based energy industry. Over 100,000 workers have lost their jobs in Canada’s oil-producing region since the current downturn in the industry began in June 2014. In the oil-rich province of Alberta, the number of workers collecting unemployment insurance has more than doubled in the past year. Wages are also plummet ing. Workers at the lowest income levels have been hit the hardest.
Who left Alberta oil workers in the lurch? It was not the opponents of pipelines. Environmental ists didn’t cause the commodity price to plummet. Capitalist greed, causing overproduction, is the main culprit. But the present situation does give every one pause to take stock of where we’re going. It’s clear that the world is on a fast track to catastrophe, fueled by rising greenhouse gas emissions.
A paper published last month by retired NASA climate scientist James Hansen and his colleagues chain for sea creatures. A study of Pacific sea snails at the University of Washington in 2014 indicated that acidification of the water is dissolving their shells. Last fall, scientists discovered 35,000 wal ruses on a beach in Alaska, a sign that sea ice, their usual habitat, is steadily shrinking.
To avoid the certainty of disaster, a transition from carbon fuels to safe, clean, 100% renewables is ur gent. Clearly, the change cannot be completed over night. But, it must begin with rejection of any new pipelines. It must be accompanied by a commitment to re-tool the energy industry.
In the process, we should not do to oil and gas workers what their greedy bosses have done—toss them onto the scrap heap, or drop them into the tar pit.
There must be a transition to solar, geothermal, hydro, ocean wave, and wind power. Laid-off work ers should be at the centre of the change. The energy Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images (Above) Workers’ trucks, Fort McMurray, Alberta.
shift must be engineered rapidly and extensively. It will cost trillions, and it must involve restitution to indigenous peoples.
Who will pay for this? The business class wants working people and the poor to pay for it, again and again. The rich even want to make money on it by operating a shell game called Cap and Trade.
Socialists say the polluters should pay. The plun dering eco-pirates are the ones who must make amends. It’s clear that if Big Oil and Gas don’t pay, the energy transition will not happen soon enough, and human civilization will be history.
Only public ownership of the entire energy sector, under democratic workers’ and community control, would enable society to harness the wealth and re sources necessary to make this urgent transition in good time. n