Canada becomes next world superpower?

Remember that pesky oil crisis? Alberta seems to have it solved, at least for the time being:

"At Suncor Energy's Millennium oil sands project, just north of Fort McMurray, Alta., the unmistakable odour of black gold drifts up from the ground and hangs thick in the air. Everywhere around you, water pooled in footprints, tire ruts and potholes carries the telltale rainbow sheen of oil. "The smell of economic progress," jokes Brad Bellows, a spokesman for Suncor, playing host on a damp spring afternoon. But it's much more than that. It's the smell of raw power -- the kind that comes from having plenty of what the rest of the world can't live without. It's the smell of a resource locked in the ground for millions of years and which now has the potential to shape the future of a nation, for better or for worse." more here.

What does this mean for U.S. energy, and furthermore, for the war in Iraq? I think we can safely assume that the United States' economy is going to avoid collapse yet again, thanks to oil reserves in the sands of Alberta and possibly the Arctic. Are we just delaying the inevitable though? The answer is a resounding, 'yes.'

There is far too much pressure from environmentalist groups around the world, as well as nations supporting the Kyoto Protocol for U.S. energy companies to start seriously tearing up ANWR - that is, until we reach a breaking point. Right now, our leaders are content to wage a holy war in Iraq to guarantee continued petroleum production from the Middle East - an area of the world that is already thoroughly entrenched in the industry. In the coming years, I believe we can expect to see steadily rising oil prices spurred on by rapidly increasing demand for petroluem. But if there is so much oil in North American reserves, why should we be worried at all?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

We should be worried about the world's oil supply not only from an economic standpoint (as my previous article on the matter suggests,) but from an environmental view. Though we may not run out of oil completely for some time, we will continue to face troubling environmental issues in the meantime. For example, we've all heard the news about how awful greenhouse gases are. If you didn't already know, a fair amount of these gases are produced normally by the flora and fauna of the planet. These gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are recycled by the environment in what is known as the carbon cycle. The natural occurrence of greenhouse gases is only a small portion of the total, however.

A staggering 82% of greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels, namely petroleum. The environment we have came pre-packaged with a nice self-regulating system for greenhouse gases. Since 1850 or so, humanity has increased the exhaust of greenhouse gases beyond the regular limits for the environment. As a result, we have experienced a rapid rise in global average temperature - about 4 degrees celsius in the last 150 years. 4 degrees is a big change, kids. The last major ice age boasts only a 5 degree average drop, and we generally regard that period in our earth's history as a drastically altered state of the planet.

So what's four lousy degrees anyway? Four degrees is enough to start seriously melting the polar ice caps, contributing to rising sea levels, cause hurricanes to set new records for strength, and decrease agricultural productivity throughout the Northern hemisphere. Additionally, we should also be on the lookout for another "little ice age" as experienced by Europeans during the middle part of the seventeenth century.

The sad sad truth

Even as more and more of the polar ice caps continue to melt away, there appears to be little to no alarm in the media. A positive spin is put on the story about the melting of the Arctic ice, claiming that the melting may (and will, in my opinion) open up the fabled, "Northwest Passage." Though the articles about the passage mention the environmental problems caused by the melting of the Arctic, I don't think they properly convey the real danger of the situation. We also seem to forget the rapidly disappearing Antarctic, another harbinger of imminent disaster. *One side note: the use of the word, 'imminent' refers to a larger time scale. While 50 years may be a long time for an individual, it is a blink of an eye on a geologic level. In 50 years when we are facing the flooding of low-lying coastal areas of the world, maybe we'll pay more attention to global warming.

The really unfortunate part about the problem is that hardly anyone seems to be paying attention. We're all too busy worrying about our own little problems which amount to nothing on a universal scale to bother thinking *gasp* fifty years ahead. Besides, we are fighting a war on 'terror' with no end in sight and our blinders secured tightly.

Again, it's a problem with religion. Many supporters of fossil fuel use are also, surprise, Christians. The book of Genesis states that the world and all the creatures in it exist so that man can subjugate them, and use them to his own ends. While that is a great idea to get early peoples pumped up about farming and growing as a race, it's not such a wonderful principle to follow in the year 2005 when there are more than 6 billion of us on this rock. It's time we abandoned this antiquated idea for something a little less harmful to the only planet we have.

Wake up and smell the carbon dioxide

We need to realize that we are alone here, together. On this planet, there are a multitude of different peoples with different agendas. Though what may be important to people in one part of the world isn't important to those in other parts, we should realize that the envrionment is everybody's concern. Without a stable environment, what will we have left to fight for? When we collectively send this planet to hell, who will be around to care whether Iraq becomes an Islamic republic anyway? Of course, no one will. We will all be scorched to death by the sun, uninhibited by the ozone layer, frozen by another epic ice age, flooded and overcrowded, and generally chewed up and spat out by a planet that has simply had enough of us. No amount of praying will ever keep us from our demise as a race. God didn't step in to help out the tsunami victims in Indonesia, nor did he divinely intervene to save Iranians during a landslide in 1990, or hundreds of thousands of Chinese in an earthquake in 1976. Nor will any supernatural power intervene to save the planet as a whole when it begins to seriously degrade and become less habitable for humanity.

I echo my previous posts when I say again, we need to be concerned with what is happening in the world: on economic, political, and environmental levels. We need to be aware of the things our "elected" leaders are doing to condemn us to struggle and hardship. If we don't start to open our eyes to actual important issues, I think we as a human race don't deserve the planet we've been given. Perhaps if we stopped going to churches and started going to science classes; if we stopped watching "Party at the Palms" and started watching "Washington Week;" if we stopped reading Stephen King, and started reading Noam Chomsky... Perhaps we would be better off.

I suppose it may be too much to ask of a society that turns out in larger numbers to vote for an American Idol than an American president, that we pay attention to things like the environment, or global politics. Maybe when this earth recycles itself (and humanity with it,) the universe will see a new species rise to power. Perhaps that species will do a little better job as the dominant force on the planet. Then again, what do I care? Tommy Lee Goes to College is on, and I can't miss that.