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Policy and solutions / Re: Oil and Gas Issues
« on: January 15, 2021, 01:08:58 AM »
Alberta is Canada's most American province.
It reliably elects conservative governments (except when the regular right wing internecine wars rip the Party apart).
It is far and away the largest fossil fuel producer in Canada, and is the single biggest impediment to Canada achieving its climate commitments.
In recent years an otherwise undistinguished blogger called Vivian Krause concocted a conspiracy theory that radical environmentalists were being funded by a sinister cabal of American interests to shut down Alberta's oil and gas industries so that American O&G could reign supreme.
She got considerable traction in the fringes of Alberta's right wing during a period when they were out of power (subsequent to a split between the far right and the extreme right).
When a federal politician moved back into provincial politics and re-united the conservative factions into the currently reigning United Conservative Party, he did so partly by swallowing whole the conspiracy theory, under the assumption that the centrist party that had been in power was insufficiently enamoured of fossil fuels and thus fellow travellers to the foreign funded radicals.
To fulfill an election promise, the new Alberta government funded a public inquiry into 'Anti Alberta Energy Activities', apparently blind to the unfortunate associations between the name of this inquiry and the anti commie inquisition in America in the 1950s.
This public inquiry spent a lot of money commissioning reports that were intended to back up the conspiracy theory.
Today an Albertan law professor who had been asked to review these reports - by the Inquiry- released his take on the reports.
As one might expect, the conspiracy theories did not stand up to scrutiny.
Alberta's fossil fuel industries continue to decline despite this and other (E.G. changing land use designations so that the Rocky Mountains can be turned into open pit coal mines) initiatives.
https://ablawg.ca/2021/01/14/textbook-climate-denialism-a-submission-to-the-public-inquiry-into-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns/
It reliably elects conservative governments (except when the regular right wing internecine wars rip the Party apart).
It is far and away the largest fossil fuel producer in Canada, and is the single biggest impediment to Canada achieving its climate commitments.
In recent years an otherwise undistinguished blogger called Vivian Krause concocted a conspiracy theory that radical environmentalists were being funded by a sinister cabal of American interests to shut down Alberta's oil and gas industries so that American O&G could reign supreme.
She got considerable traction in the fringes of Alberta's right wing during a period when they were out of power (subsequent to a split between the far right and the extreme right).
When a federal politician moved back into provincial politics and re-united the conservative factions into the currently reigning United Conservative Party, he did so partly by swallowing whole the conspiracy theory, under the assumption that the centrist party that had been in power was insufficiently enamoured of fossil fuels and thus fellow travellers to the foreign funded radicals.
To fulfill an election promise, the new Alberta government funded a public inquiry into 'Anti Alberta Energy Activities', apparently blind to the unfortunate associations between the name of this inquiry and the anti commie inquisition in America in the 1950s.
This public inquiry spent a lot of money commissioning reports that were intended to back up the conspiracy theory.
Today an Albertan law professor who had been asked to review these reports - by the Inquiry- released his take on the reports.
As one might expect, the conspiracy theories did not stand up to scrutiny.
Alberta's fossil fuel industries continue to decline despite this and other (E.G. changing land use designations so that the Rocky Mountains can be turned into open pit coal mines) initiatives.
https://ablawg.ca/2021/01/14/textbook-climate-denialism-a-submission-to-the-public-inquiry-into-anti-alberta-energy-campaigns/