Resistance is Futile........

Dave Yager writes some closing thoughts as he leaves his post at MNP. We reposted the whole blog at http://cagc1900.blogspot.ca/2016/04/david-yager-in-closing.html

A few highlights from his column titled: Canada's Oil Industry May Never Be the Same -- Here's Why!

Never is a long time. The dictionary definition is, “at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever.” In the volatile oil and gas industry, those who try to look that far into the future and predict anything with certainty are invariably wrong. Here’s hoping.

But it’s not all bad Oil prices are gradually rising because of market physics and investor sentiment. Federal and provincial politicians are softening their opposition to, and have even publicly declared support for, pipelines to tidewater. The worst is over.

However, it is increasingly certain the future will not be like the past. Previous downturns have been equally devastating but the primary causes eventually reversed themselves; low commodity prices recovered and damaging government policies were rescinded.This recovery will be different for a variety of reasons which will combine to cap growth, opportunity and profits, even if oil and gas prices spike. The following major changes appear permanent. 1) Perception that Oil Is Destroying the World; 2) “Quantitative Easing” No Longer Stimulating Economy; 3) The U.S. Shale Boom Was Financed By Low Interest Rates; 4) Middle East Production About Volume, Not Price.

Canada Down But Not Out - Canada produces 7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day of bitumen, crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas, making it the fifth largest hydrocarbon-producing jurisdiction in the world. The country won’t be going out of the oil and gas business anytime soon, so keeping it going will remain good business and the largest resource industry in Canada.

But the current mantra of “lower for longer” is wrong. This is only the price of oil. In terms of the Canadian oil and gas industry there are multiple reasons it could be “lower for a long time, possibly forever.” As a country that performs all elements of producing still-essential hydrocarbons as well or better than anyone else in the world – everything from broad economic participation to worker safety to environmental protection – that is a tragedy.

On April 26 Don Pittis wrote this column for CBC News online http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-change-fossil-leap-economy-pipelines-1.3551585?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning

Excerpts from Climate change resistance is futile so build all the pipelines:

He begins…."Resistance is futile," says the Borg in the Star Trek TV series. The phrase, spoken by the collective machine intelligence or "hive mind" which is the enemy of all Star Trek individualists, has become an ironic meme on the internet.

The phrase came to mind this week following news articles on the economic pressure to expand Canadian oil and gas production in the face of Canada's commitment to reduce carbon output. And it leaves the Liberal government with a series of knotty problems.

The nub of the difficulty comes down to the seemingly inevitable conflict between the economy and climate change. The question the Liberal cabinet must ask itself is how much economic and political sacrifice it is willing to make to adhere to its international climate commitment.

He ends…. If the scientists are right, then the carbon age must pass. And one or the other — African farmers or Alberta oil workers — will have to suffer economic consequences.

The question is merely do governments have the political support to take action now or do we have to wait for some sort of greater crisis to concentrate people's minds and really prove the danger. Of course the longer we wait the more it will strengthen the "it's too late, we're doomed" argument.

In another recent op-ed, Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Upside of Down, condemned the NDP's Leap document because it conflated climate change with a lot of other issues of the political left.

Climate change is not a left-right issue. Avoiding economic destruction will be profitable for the companies able to create the technology of the post-carbon era.

Alberta companies will make some of those profits. It is hard to imagine that the oil giants will not profit from those technologies as well, if they allow themselves to change with the times.

In the war against climate change, as in any war, there are always defeatists. The war may not be won. It may not be winnable. But believing the defeatists inevitably leads to defeat.    

The irony of the "resistance is futile" meme is that the Star Trek heroes always resist and always win in the end. But of course that's just television.

From Brainy Quote

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

-          Sun Tzu