From Miracle to Menace – Alberta, A Carbon Story

For the first 20 years of this century, there had been a growing belief that the world can and should replace fossil fuels as its primary source of energy. This was to reduce the combustion emissions that, through the release of carbon dioxide (coined a “greenhouse gas” because of its capacity to trap heat in the atmosphere), were believed to be the major driver of severe climate change. Unchecked, this would permanently damage the Earth and everything that lives on it.

Obviously, this would have a major impact on Alberta and its major resources industries. As I wrote in the book, “Alberta without oil and gas is Manitoba with mountains.” Geographically isolated in a remote portion of northwest North America, without enormous quantities of oil, natural gas and coal, Alberta would be no more successful economically than its immediate neighbors. Some of the most underpopulated regions of North America are to Alberta’s north, west, south and east.

By the end of the last decade, climate politics had polarized Canada in ways never before imagined. Fossil fuel producing provinces like Alberta were attacked morally and economically by political parties supported by the larger urban and more heavily populated regions of Canada. This included blocking new market access pipelines to other parts of Canada and international markets.

How did this happen? Why did it happen? How did Alberta go from the most important economic engine of Canada’s resource-based economy to an existential threat to the future of the world?

Hence the title. From Miracle to Menace – Alberta, A Carbon Story. I had to know, so I wrote a book about it.

The book examines Alberta through the eyes of the province’s massive oil, natural gas, and coal industries. A major focus is the past and present regional politics and energy policies that have divided the country.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the political battle was about shortages of oil, skyrocketing prices, and who should share in the growing profits.

By 2015, the political battle was about too much oil and how, if we didn’t quit producing and using it, the devastation of the world’s climate system was all but assured.

But as the book explains, Canada’s political determination to save the world alone would not stop climate change. Global energy demand was forecast to grow by 30% in the next 20 years regardless of actions Canada undertook. With no substitutes for plastics, petrochemicals and heavy transportation, oil consumption would continue to grow with the world population no matter which path Canada chose.

As Canada’s carbon resource warehouse, Alberta had become ground zero for the political battle over the country’s future. Already devasted by the collapse in natural gas and later oil prices – and denied increased market access pipelines in all directions – Alberta’s future increasingly depended upon which politicians comprised the next federal government.

Because the sooner that Canada got out of the oil and gas business, the better the country and the world would be. That’s how the world looked in 2019.

The opening sentence in the book reads, “That is what is supposed to happen when the world decarbonizes by switching away from fossil fuels. Massive economic dislocation and disruption. Did someone forget to tell you that”?

The book has three sections.

-Carbon Development: Alberta helps Canada become the world’s fifth largest oil and gas producer.

-Carbon Politics: past policy failures and how climate change became the world’s greatest threat.

-Carbon Future: the complex issues behind fossil fuel emissions and practical ways Canadians can help the world meet the challenge.

After exhaustive research and analysis, the book concluded in 2019 that the end of fossil fuels as promoted by so many was impossible with devastating economic consequences.

To understand how the energy that has powered modern society – the Miracle – was now civilization’s greatest threat – the Menace – I turned to books on human psychology and behavior to fully comprehend the phenomenon what was taking place. As writer, I also examined how much the media had changed this century. The conclusion was that the climate change frenzy was rooted more on the rise of the internet and its influence on public views and politics than on economics, physics and common sense.

Because when global demographics and a realistic assessment of the state of mankind were taken into consideration, decarbonization as being thrust upon Alberta by social activists, a vastly changed media and vote-seeking politicians did not survive objective analysis.

In the Epilogue I wrote, “Unlike to many, I have never felt qualified to decide what the maximum population of the world must be, when we have reached that level, and what the world should look like when we’re done…If I have accomplished anything in this book it is hopefully that people understand how many ways the climate change issue has been distorted, highjacked and misdirected, and how little progress will be made until more people acknowledge the complexity of the challenge”.

The book also maps a future for Alberta as a world leader in responsible hydrocarbon production, a path the province is on today.

Since 2021 there has been a growing global outbreak of common even in Canada.

But the book remains very relevant because it explains how Alberta became a global energy powerhouse, how we ended up on an unworkable and unsustainable path, and teaches the reader what to look out for so we don’t do it again.

As importantly, it is a highly focused assessment of how the emergence of the internet, the destruction of the fact-based conventional media, and the exploitation of both by ambitious politicians can materially change the direction of an entire country and the western world.