A version of this was written for and published by the BC Conservative.

How does a society regress, ignoring what made it great, quietly marching down a path to its own demise? Can people willingly give up the source of their well-being? How did large numbers of human beings become so violently anti-human wellbeings?

There’s little that could harm us more than a full implementation of the green agenda. And so the question, why are we so complacently willing and even enthusiastically striving to destroy the base of our society’s affluence by rejecting fossil fuels? Have we completely accepted the green argument?

The three main fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas are all condemned by the zealous greens with the less strident greens tolerating natural gas as a transition fuel but only until we finally achieve their utopian state, the carbonless society. We need to ask ourselves, what will we have to give up in order to satisfy their green cause?

Coal is used to make 90% of the world’s steel, either directly or from electricity generated by burning coal as 70% of the world’s electricity comes to us from coal.

Crude oil provides the power to move 90% of our transportation system. Airplanes, ships, trains, trucks and cars move only because we feed them fuel from oil. And here () is a short list of some of the more than 6000 things we get from oil.

Natural gas heats our homes, generates our electricity, and provides the basic chemical feedstock for a multitude of products including fertilizer and plastic.

There are yet no alternatives for fossil fuels. It is impossible to find a viable substitute for hydrocarbon fuels either as an energy source or for the chemical building blocks that make modern society possible. To stop using fossil fuels is to lose our society. So why do so many of our society’s leaders call for an end to the use of fossil fuels? They claim electric cars recharged by wind turbines and solar panels are the answer. Of course, our leaders fly to climate gab-feasts in fossil fuel-driven jet aircraft. They are ignoring reality and hope we will remain to do so as well.

The intermittency of green power makes it too unreliable to power our industrial society. Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba in “Energy Myths and Reality” advises us to “be wary of exaggerated claims and impossible promises.” He claims a transition from fossil fuels is on a distant horizon. We’d do well to listen.

Yet despite knowing what we will lose if we reject the use of oil, many people are silent. Is it that they fear swimming against the current in the public opinion river? At few gatherings do the crowd praise oil. Mainly the strident voices call for the end of oil.

According to energy reports, Canada has the world’s third-largest reserves of fossil fuel, less only than Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. A serious question to consider; how much of the criticism of the Canadian oil industry is in fact funded by competitive oil producers with the specific goal of keeping Canadian oil from the world market? Vivian Krause has traced the funding for many environmental groups here.

It is because of the phenomenal benefit fossil fuels bestow on an energy-starved populous that we need to be right if we call for the end to oil. The harm of using oil must outweigh the benefit it provides for us in order to justify massive restrictions on its use. Do carbon dioxide penalties serve any purpose in protecting human life?

Do we think using oil will have an adverse effect on our environment? Are we mistaken in thinking it is necessary to eliminate oil? Is carbon dioxide the evil gas it is claimed to be?

I’ll elaborate next time but today I want to leave you with but one thought about carbon dioxide. All the carbon dioxide we release by burning fossil fuels was taken from the atmosphere many eons ago. The plant life that died to make fossil fuel took its carbon content from that ancient atmosphere.

Life flourished in the ancient world at that time. Life will not be compromised by releasing the same gas back into the atmosphere.

Our society is being impoverished by ignorant energy policies brought forth by political leaders unwilling or unable to think clearly. The BC Conservatives would let the debate that none want to see take place, the debate about catastrophic climate change, the topic for next time.