What's the Deal with Single-Use Plastics?

I'm having trouble understanding this single use plastic fruhaha. 

If there is an oil spill, the oil companies are held responsible. If there is a sewer backup the municipality is held responsible. So why aren't the manufacturers of all these plastic bags, straws, eating utensils, and other single-use plastics held responsible for all this plastic clogging our oceans?  

Also, around the world there has got to be thousands of petro chemists working hard changing oil into all these useful items. Why can't some of them be employed by the manufacturers to change the single-use plastic products back to oil? Seems only logical that if you can change oil into something else you should be able to change that something else back into oil!  

Ridiculous!

I have heard that Dr. David Suzuki told a large gathering of Calgary teachers at their convention last week that "Alberta's oil must stay in the ground!"

What is the matter with this guy? 

What was even more alarming was that very, very few teachers walked out on him and many gave him a standing ovation!

What's the matter with those Albertans?

Jane Fonda's Visit to Alberta

Last week, actress Jane Fonda came to Alberta to tell us how to manage our petroleum resources!  She said flying over the oil sands extraction areas made her physically ill.  She told us to stop this terrible industry, right now!

I wonder how much actual research she did on the problems of oil extraction in the Athabasca Oil Sands.  Did she base her comments on strong scientific evidence?  What qualifications does she have to tell us what to do?  I personally don't think she has any right to come here from California (which isn't known for it's pollution free environment) in a private jet fueled by petroleum products to tell us we're all going to heck for what we're doing to the environment! 

I have doubts that she understands the situation!

Wasn't it Jane Fonda who went to North Viet Nam during the war, sat in an anti-aircraft gun and pretended to shoot and kill American airmen?  My case rests!

A Greener Alberta?

We are being inundated by adds from the provincial government telling us that we can look forward to a greener, more diversified Alberta economy with the Climate Leadership Plan.  They show us pictures of wind powered generators, solar panels, and hydroelectric facilities. 

They seem to have forgotten one of Alberta's biggest sources of energy; oil and natural gas.  What is our government doing to help the petroleum industry find ways to make their products greener?  I know for a fact that such research and development exists, where is our government on this? 

With these huge oil, coal, and gas reserves in Alberta, it would seem logical that the Alberta government be encouraging and financing research to find ways to make those products environmentally friendly.

Their biggest contribution appears to be their new Carbon Levy which, in my opinion, discourages any research into making petroleum greener.  It instead encourages us to buy less petroleum products to avoid the tax.  I'm having a problem seeing the logic here.

Does our new NDP government expect the big oil companies to shut down oil production and start building windmills?

What's Up with Oil Prices?

Over my 30+ years in education, we always taught that non-renewable resources were not replaceable.  Once they're used up, they're gone forever.  So this battle of the oil barons has me all confused.  Oil is a non-renewable resource!

I understand that some of the world's oil producers are selling oil at fire sale prices which is lowering the price of oil globally.  More than 20,000 Albertans have lost  their jobs because the companies they worked for say that they can't keep them on and make a profit with oil prices so low.

Every day we use more and more of our world wide oil resources but there's a finite amount of oil in the ground!  One day we'll run out!  One day the Arab states will run out of oil. Venezuela will run out of oil. Indonesia will run out of oil.  Russia will run out of oil.  And even Canada will run out of oil! So, why the low prices? 

Don't give me that supply and demand crap, either!  I repeat; the supply of oil is extremely limited and the demand continues to rise.  You cannot conserve oil by selling more of it at extremely low prices!  I think some of these oil producers need to wake up and smell the coffee.   

Questions for the Candidates: Economic Diversification & Foreign Ownership

Question #3 addresses economic diversification.  This tends to be something I believe is important.

All parties in Alberta have paid lip service to the idea that our economy must move away from its dependence on petroleum.  But I have yet to hear of anything concrete.

I also fear that any attempt to develop other sources of revenue in our province, especially those exploiting natural resources, will end up in the same hopeless mess that petroleum is in now.

Even though Alberta's gas and oil reserves are found beneath our feet, we have little or no control over its exploitation and distribution. I see most of our petroleum industry owned and controlled by foreign interests.  The price Albertans pay for gasoline processed from our Alberta oil is seemingly decided by folks in Houston, Denver, and Beijing -- not Calgary.

Oil companies take home some huge profits from our oil and gas reserves, higher than almost everywhere else in the world!  What's to prevent any new industries, created to diversify our economy, from going the same way?

Question #3;  If your party forms Alberta's next government, how will you ensure that your efforts to diversify our economy will not turn into another foreign ownership fiasco like the petroleum industry?

Buying Back our own Oil?

Here's one for the "believe it or not" column.  The province of Alberta is a very large producer of crude oil, both traditional crude and synthetic crude from the oil sands.  The way I understand it, our crude is already being shipped out of province down to the United States, where it's processed into gasoline and shipped BACK to Alberta -- to be sold at huge mark-ups. 

I have also been told that there are refineries here in Alberta capable of making gasoline sitting idle or producing at a very low capacity.

I obviously don't understand this industry.  Shouldn't these companies who are exploiting an Albertan natural, non-renewable resource be working hard to put as many Albertans to work as possible?  Alberta has always been proud of its highly trained oilfield workers.  Albertan oilmen and women are being employed around the world to help others with their petroleum industries.

Yet jobs are disappearing here at home while our own crude is exported elsewhere so others in other countries may profit refining it!  Stranger than fiction.

Price of Oil and Alberta's Financial Woes

First, let me remind everyone that I am not a financial guru or even a bean counter.  I and everyone I know are enjoying the low prices of gasoline, but I don't even pretend to know why they're so low.  I understand that a bunch of countries in a group called OPEC (including Saudi Arabia) are selling their oil at rock bottom prices and that's driving the world-wide price down.  Low crude prices means low gasoline prices. 

Does that mean those same countries have too much money and can afford to sell their oil cheap or are they trying to force the other oil companies out of business so they can set any price they want?  Or are they just interested in forcing the companies making oil from the oilsands out of business or at least stop them from growing?  I don't understand their thinking, but then again I'm not an oil sheik either!

I feel badly for those working in the oil patch because their jobs are in jeopardy.  I feel badly for Alberta now dealing with far less revenue from oil than they first predicted.  I can't see this lasting.  The world demand for oil keeps going up while the overall world supply keeps going down.  After all, oil is a non-renewable resource.  I see this as a little blip on the screen. I don't think it can last.

I believe that everyone will have to tighten their belts over the next while, until those offshore oil companies get over their greedy little games.   It may make us stronger.  It may give us added incentive to push for diversification a little harder.  It may convince those folks so against pipelines that those same pipelines will make North America less dependent on foreign oil.  It might help them turn their energies toward making the world's safest pipelines, instead of stopping them.

I hope I'm right about this being very temporary.  Let's all hang in there and wait it out!  We can make it!