f(x)

Please click on each image to view the panel in a larger size:

 

 

Comments

[Stephanie]

right, this is all true. With present extraction and separation technology, the production of a barrel of oil is a hugely disproportionate consumption of energy to produce a different kind of energy. Destruction is oil industry's middle name. However, technology jumps ahead if the need is there. If natural gas supplies decline, something will fill the vacuum.

At the root is Carol's comment that consumption must decline if mining is to decline. The dependence on oil is like dependence on heroin or cocaine, or beef: the producers in Columbia, Afghanistan, the oil sands and the now cut down Amazon rain forest respond to demand no matter at what personal cost.

In the meantime, there is a housing and transportation crisis, which may or may not, again dependent on technological developments, have a limited life span, and may eventually be abandoned. However, aboriginal peoples will not abandon this territory and whatever is built in the interim will house many people's whole working life span. Enough generations of wildlife will be interrupted to eliminate species – they are already at risk. So there is an urgency to this.

If the oil sands were to close down, it won't be for another 3 or 4 decades. We will all be very elderly people, as will oil sands workers, if they live. Paradoxically, it is the awful housing, the dreary roads, the lack of amenities all built to last that no one will care if they leave. But a different kind of housing and infrastructure timed to self-destruct (thinking of Kobberling and Kaltwasser's work here), something light on the ground, will probably be quite appreciated – even loved as the world, including Alberta, becomes aware that it must reverse progressive growth.

[LValentine]

This is a strong idea and compelling argument;

We would like to see more of this, or possibly collaborate and integrate with our own ideas of a train dominant travel network.
Liza +Travis