Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
Your first assumption is a major assumption. The counter-factual to not building NGP isn't simply waving your hand and saying the oil is still produced anyway. Unless oil finds markets it stays in the ground. GHGs are central to this question. Canada has made targetsto reduce its GHGs by 17 percent by 2020. To achieve these targets the government would need to demonstrate how building the pipeline and the new upstream oil production that will come would be consistent with those targets. It's basic math.
You can't count all the upstream benefits of the pipeline without equally counting all the upstream costs. The benefits are widely touted, X amount of investment in oil sands infrastructure and jobs Jobs JOBS! The costs are GHG emissions and other environmental impacts from that production. The Harper government expressly forebade any consideration of the costs which is a fundamentally inconsistent and pre-emptive methodology.
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Over time you have demonstrated that there are some very important things you just don't comprehend. It's just true. The demand for oil is such that if the AB oilsands crude doesn't come out of the ground, it will somewhere else. Maybe Brazil, maybe Kuwait maybe S.A. or most likely Venezuela.
The Oil will be produced anyway. It just will. If you want to understand why, go learn about the concepts of demand elasticity. Wether this line goes ahead or not, the same amount of oil will come out of the ground. Crude Oil vessels move all over the world rather cheaply, distributing it to who wants it. Its simply a competition to see who produces those barrels.
We could make or not make some 17% GHG target, but to the extent we get there because we don't produce heavy oil, someone else on the planet will. if this is what it takes to meet this GHG target we will do the equivalent of creating a non smoking row on a plane that permits smoking everywhere else. You can feel good about what you've done in row 17, but it won't matter.