No preview available
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2018-6-28, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018. PAGE 5. Other Views We hate oil, Last week's Iowa train derailment and subsequent oil spill from tanker cars carrying Alberta tar sands oil will no doubt renew the debate about the horrors of oil. It won't stop us continuing to use oil, though. We have a hate/love relationship with oil. I mean it's pretty hard to "like" oil, but we sure like the things it allows us to do. Oil's dirty. I'm sure even those who work in the oil business don't take a lot of pleasure in handling the stuff. We sure like the conveniences oil bring us, though. Growing up on our farm we started off heating our house with wood, as most of our neighbours did back then. When my father was forced to take an off -farm job to make ends meet, there wasn't time to go to the bush and harvest firewood so he bought an oil - burning stove. You filled it once a day and it kept the house warm all night long, unlike the wood stove that burned out at night and left the bedrooms feeling like igloo interiors. Much of the comfortable modern lifestyle we lead in Canada is thanks to oil. Our food is cheap, in large part because of powerful diesel -powered engines that run tractors and combines. Cheap food leaves us more money to buy cheap manufactured goods, made in parts of the world where people earn a lot less than we do here and transported to us on mammoth container ships fueled by oil. We complain about the high price of gasoline — the promises of lower gas prices being at least part of the reason we have a new Premier in Ontario — but we think nothing of weekly trips to shop in larger centres, which have devastated our rural downtowns. Despite gripes about how hard it is to make ends meet, we build larger and larger homes to be heated by fuel oil or its but we still use it Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk relative, natural gas. I'm betting the size of the average detached home being built today is at least double that of a new home of the 1950s. The newest concern is that the world is drowning in plastics that can't be recycled now that China is refusing to take our plastic waste. Plastic is made using petroleum. Let's face it, we're addicted to oil and its derivatives. Which is why some caring people think we must be saved from ourselves by keeping oil from Alberta's tar sands in the ground. Many of those who want to block the Trans Mountain Pipeline from being completed think Canada must show a good example by shutting down oil production, especially from the "dirty" oil sands. But unless these people are Old Order Amish or Mennonites, they're being hypocrites. We're all adding to the problem and if we don't get our oil from Alberta we'll get it from somewhere else. The very sort of person most likely to protest the pipeline is also the type of person who thinks it's important to broaden their world view by traveling. Never in history have so many people traveled for pleasure. If they were truly conscious about the environment they could travel on sailing ships, the way my great -great- grandparents came to Canada from Scotland 170 years ago, but that took the better part of two months. Today's people in a hurry want to be in Scotland — or wherever — in a few hours. So we fly in airplanes, and burn millions of tons of carbon to help speed up climate change. Even people who dedicate their lives to protect the earth add to the problem. Al Gore, the former U.S. vice-president and environmental activist who won awards for his film An Inconvenient Truth, is an easy target for his critics because he flies all over the world to talk about climate change. Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green Party, must make dozens of flights across Canada every year just to attend Parliament, not to mention for speaking and fundraising events. The sad reality that we all depend on oil doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to use less of it. Mostly, we must do it ourselves, examining our lives and questioning how we can reduce our carbon footprint. That's not an easy fix. It requires awareness and a sense of responsibility that some people will never have. Governments can make it worth our while to change. Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative government didn't help us when it cancelled the GreenON program that gave incentives for people to upgrade their insulation or install more energy-efficient windows to reduce the amount of oil or gas burned in heating. I suspect that Premier Ford thought the program was a boondoggle because he doesn't really think there is a climate change problem. The Iowa derailment shows that simply preventing pipelines from being built doesn't solve the problems. As long as people use oil, producers will find a way to get it to the market. Only by changing our ways and using less oil will we really break the addiction. Might be an investment worth making Last week at Morris-Turnberry Council's meeting, Director of Public Works Mike Alcock told council how much it would cost to have tar and chip pavement throughout the municipality: $30 million. That's the kind of figure that can be tough to wrap your head around. The best way I've ever figured out how to do it is by homes. Find a home worth $200,000. Now imagine a block of them. If we're using my block, that means about 15 of them. That's $3 million. So, to help you visualize, that's 10 blocks of $200,000 homes. Still not easy to grasp, but it gives you an idea. For the cost of paving the approximately 120 kilometres of unpaved road in Morris- Turnberry, 150 families could buy homes. Alcock's presentation didn't receive the response I had anticipated it would. He had set out to tell council what paving the municipality's gravel roads with tar and chip or full asphalt paving would cost in the short term and the long term and the benefits it would provide. One of the biggest challenges, he said, was presenting a plan from which people would see benefit. As he pointed out, that $30 million was in 2018 dollars and would only increase. He also pointed out that, with the way the municipality has been handling paving, doing sections of roads every year, it would be decades, close to a century, before council succeeded in paving every road in the municipality. Some people could be long gone from the municipality before they ever see the benefit. Alternatively, the municipality could take out a significant loan, start the project, and hope funding became available to help pay down some of those costs later on. Morris-Turnberry is an interesting council to cover for a number of reasons, but primary among them is the fact that it has very few settlement areas. et _ Denny Scott _Aliffilli Denny's Den North Huron, for example, has to try and balance the fact that, geographically, it's primarily agricultural with East Wawanosh, however the majority of its ratepayers live in Wingham and Blyth. Because of the lack of settlement areas, Morris-Turnberry tackles a lot fewer big ticket projects than its neighbours. While it contributes to community centres, it has few within its borders. There is no Howson Dam, no Brussels Library, no Regional Equine Centre of Huron and the facilities the municipality does have are small compared to neighbours. It may sound like I'm disparaging it, but the opposite is true. Because of the lack of these major centres and structures, the municipality has very little debt, which, as part of the discussions regarding the paving, has actually proven to be a detriment. Council members and staff pointed out that having little or no debt actually hurts when Morris-Turnberry applies for funding. Taking on a $30 million loan might seem overly ambitious but, again, comparing it to its neighbours, the idea of spending that kind of money on infrastructure would actually appeal to me as a ratepayer. And just in case I'm not clear here, there was no motion, no decision to go after a loan to pay for the road work, I'm just playing a what -if game here. Consider, for example, North Huron's conundrum with Wingham's Howson Dam. If council decides (and as a ratepayer, I cannot stress how much I hope they do not do this) to do anything except remove the dam, it's going to be a multi-million dollar project. If council does decide to replace the dam, which I hope they don't because I'd like to one day pay off my student loans, it will cost more than $6 million. That $6 million isn't likely to benefit me in any way. You wouldn't catch me swimming, fishing or boating in the pond that is created through the dam and tourists, in my guess, would likely prefer Lake Huron over a pond. That $6 million may actually have a negative impact on me, as the municipality could find itself in an expensive situation if the dam structure is tied to damage that upstream flooding may cause. Compare that project to paving one-fifth of the unpaved roads in Morris-Turnberry (an apples -to -apples comparison in cost only). Sure, the people who benefit the most from it are going to be the people who own property on those 24 kilometres of roads, but it's also going to benefit every other ratepayer who travels those roads. Every Morris-Turnberry ratepayer whose taxes go up will be able to see the fruits of those tax dollars. Everyone benefits from higher quality roads because it lessens traffic on major thoroughfares, reduces dust, increases the time between resurfacing and makes the municipality look a lot more appealing. That's to say nothing of the fact that, as a driver, I always feel safer on pavement than gravel. It's an expensive project that benefits everyone and compared to other projects that are paid for by everyone, but benefit few, it's a no-brainer. Having an entirely paved municipality is a goal ratepayers can point at and feel good about. Could a council really ask for more? Shawn Loughlin gab Shawn's Sense The winds of change 0 ver the last few weeks, I've been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan. Actually, I've been listening to a very specific Dylan performance: his concert on May 17, 1966 in England. Music buffs will know this as the infamous "Judas" show. The day before the show, Dylan released Blonde on Blonde, which many regard to be his finest album (although I, myself, am more of a Blood on the Tracks man). It's safe to say that at this show Dylan was performing some of the best songs he's ever written. The controversy came when Dylan, a folk hero to a generation who'd found a voice to challenge the establishment, plugged in. Folk music, many of his fans felt, was a product that could only come from an acoustic guitar. To "go electric" and play rock and roll music, these people felt, was to betray not only their trust, but everything folk music represented. Dylan played two sets. The first was a traditional Dylan solo set featuring acoustic versions of classics like "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Just Like a Woman". He then came out with his band and ripped through electric versions of songs like "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" and "Like A Rolling Stone". Music historians speak in glowing terms about the perfect storm surrounding the circumstances of the show. As those at the concert drank more and Dylan further embraced the realm of electrical music, the fans became increasingly more agitated. That unrest and reluctance to accept Dylan's new direction further fueled his resolve. In fact, after he was labelled "Judas" prior to playing the final song of the night, Dylan snapped back by calling the man a liar, saying he didn't believe him. He then told his band to "play loud" on the last song of the night, essentially antagonizing the audience into accepting him. Listening back to this concert and not being wrapped up in the politics of the time and place, it's an incredible 90 minutes of music. Not only is the audience hearing what would turn out to be some of Dylan's greatest work, but with those shows he introduced the world to a group of musicians that would eventually become The Band and craft its own Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -worthy career. However, despite this confluence of events, the ungrateful audience could only jeer and express its disinterest all because it was new. The idea that something new or different would be rejected is an odd one on the surface, but it actually reaches down to our very programming and human nature Animals have been known to reject those in the pack who look different, even in situations of a mother and a child. Something very deep down is triggered in these scenarios. Just recently, Oxford County Warden David Mayberry spoke to Huron County Council about his county's goal of being completely free of fossil fuels by 2050. He said that while some of the advanced technology may seem intimidating now, adaptation is inevitable if the will to do so is there. He used the example of smartphones. Essentially handheld computers, many found the concept unthinkable just 10 years ago, but now the vast majority of us find it hard to picture our lives without one. To think that we can be staring something life -changing in the face and reject it as new and, therefore, irrelevant is baffling, but it happens every day. Just keep in mind that you may very well be seeing something great. Keep an open mind and be on the right side of change and I guarantee you'll look back fondly on how you manoeuvered the world.