Time, long overdue, to demand a new road

December 13, 2018 · 0 Comments

Written by CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

Here is the brutal truth: there are no excuses, no actual reasons, for laying pipelines that deliver fossil fuels, especially bitumen. There are no virtues in claiming that every precaution against spillage and disaster have been considered and promised. It doesn’t matter a damn if huge sums of money are being collected from shipping lines, set aside from the public funds for “clean up” in the B.C. harbours.

When there is bitumen or any other poisonous crud dumped in those waters or on that sacred land, when that happens, the money won’t matter! It won’t be able to fix the problem nor ever, ever clean up the mess. No amount of your tax dollars will repair the damage that the slightest slip, omission, over looked mistake, will make up at all for the damage done. When one of those pipeline links fails, one of those state the art ships fails, and they will, nothing will compensate to the ocean life, to the wild life and the land, the next disaster we inflict on them.

Have a look at the history of oil spills – even the word tries to mitigate the hurt – you spill a cup of tea; spill a glass of wine (and that’s bad enough); a child spills his/her milk; this word pretends it is “only” a spill but one that causes chaos and loss for ever.

It is time, long, long overdue, to take the cost of building the pipelines, to finally admit there are other energy sources which are virtually clear of pollution, and invest that there.

Scientists around the world are shouting as loudly as they can to tell us, to warn us about the pending ultimate ruin of our very lives, our own sweet earth, upon which we depend for everything.

Yet, we yak on about decreasing our pollutants, with a timeline a generation long, as though there were that kind of time available to us, without looking around to see how quickly things are changing, not waiting for us to change.

When we continue to talk about oil, pipelines, industry, we talk first and foremost about money; we blackmail each other with assurances of jobs and economic benefits that will make no difference in the long term when the storms wipe away all we own and take the lives of our loved ones.

There are so many other ways to produce energy, to fuel our vehicles which are still running on inter combustion engines, on tires made with petroleum, of plastics using the same source. Everything -nearly – we use is created with harmful ingredients and becomes sinister waste matter.

It seems, as any improved method of harnessing energy to create power comes along, there is much to diminish and devalue it – wind power, use of animal waste methane to create fuel; true recycling and garbage of every single kind can be re- formatted and reused for road paving from tires; paper, running shoes; food wrap –

We don’t have to waste anything. We are able now, without inventing a single thing: to power our world, overhaul completely our modes of transportation, grow our food sustainably.

The pollution and rot with which we fill our environment with rubbish housing – not a solar panel in sight – is unforgivable and our politicians – week kneed, bending to the easy money and obvious solutions which are not solutions – it is all unforgivable.

Because: here is the kicker: cold fusion. It sounds radical for sure. Everything fundamentally important is radical. It is not a new idea. Those against it will see otherwise as research and development have succeeded.

Dr M Srinivasan, in India began working with cold fusion (hydrogen) 29 years ago and, at about the same time, in the USA, so were Dr. Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons. Basically, using low energy nuclear fusion with heavy water (look it up) has been dismissed as not viable but is already in use overseas.

Here in Canada, Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation (HETC) and Shell Oil Company launched the first retail hydrogen refuelling station for hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, on Grenville Street in Calgary and on June 15, 2018! This year, only six months ago, following the examples of other countries abroad..

This is the first hydrogen vehicle refuelling station open to the public in Canada. Three more stations are planned for Vancouver. Fuelled by water vapour, basically, hydrogen fuelled vehicles do not produce CO2’s or other harmful pollutants.

Cold fusion, now convincingly established, will provide unlimited free energy, once the infrastructure is built. This will cost money for a unimaginable global transition and keep people employed forever.

Well, well. In the meantime, ever resisting, we are constantly being encouraged to look backwards as we are dragged into the addiction of social media, drunk on the irrelevant, so as to be indifferent to the cataclysms coming our way.the shows are included in the cost of the entrance ticket. What is saner and more fun than smart dogs (no technology) racing through obstacles, herding sheep, utsmartin their handlers? There are many other entertainments in that theatre – come and see.

The horses dance, jump, are clever, beautiful, kind both in the Animal Theatre and the Colesium.