The Difference

While our Federal CPoC government whines about how "impossible" it is to meet targets on climate change, and Alberta's Ed Stelmach complains about not getting enough of Federal funding for climate change, B.C.'s government is pushing hard beyond the kind of targets set in Kyoto.

While Ed Stelmach wanders about Alberta giving speeches about how he won't allow "Eastern Liberal Politicians" to tell us how to manage the oilsands development (linkage to follow when I can find it - there was a bit on CBC as I drove home tonight and its not on the websites yet), we find B.C.'s Liberal government saying that it is going to be quite aggressive on emissions.

To me, this illustrates the difference between the Alberta-style Conservative and the rest of Canada in regards to climate issues. The Alberta Conservative runs around wringing their hands and worrying about how "bad" it would be for Alberta's economy to put any constraints on the oil patch. Others see opportunity for all sorts of new economic activity that can be fostered. There is a necessity to force change to start - business is amazingly resistant to changing direction, and will always complain about how bad it is to divert profits.

The funny bit about it is that while Alberta has the cash flow (and even with oil prices somewhat lower than the lofty $70/barrel heights of a year or so back), it is the best possible time to foster the development of new technologies to begin the process of reducing our impact upon the globe. Will it be cheap? No - at least not initially. But, personally, I'd much rather have the technology developed here and sold into the Alberta oilpatch (and elsewhere in the world) rather than the other way around.

The difference is maturity - the ability to look beyond the here and now, and see a bigger vision of Canada as both an energy producer, and a provider of the technologies that the rest of the world will need to bring their own impact on the globe under control as well.