You may be asking yourself, why keep beating the energy policy drum. Isn’t it possible to find other important things to discuss? Or, as some have suggested, why not focus on LNG and get the flow of money happening. Of course there are innumerable areas that would benefit from valid criticism but few issues would remain unresolved if we implement a rational policy toward energy …..for two reasons. Energy powers all of our activities and adhering to reason in one area inevitably cause us to think more clearly in other areas as well.

The late Julian Simon made the point succinctly in “The Ultimate Resource”, showing human intelligence to be the ultimate resource. He also wisely labeled ‘energy’ the ‘master resource’. Abundant energy and free human minds can give us access to all that is naturally possible. If we can think it, energy let’s us build it.

Bringing us to the fact that human affluence is supported by two pillars, freedom and energy.

And so the question, can bureaucratic control lead to societal success? Can a population flourish when every decision must be made by a self-serving committee? We’ve been warned of the dangers of doing so by the signers of the Magna Carta, by John Locke, by Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. In fiction, George Orwell, Ayn Rand and many others paint dismal pictures showing what transpires when life-control is relinquished to bureaucracies. Many brilliant people throughout history have fought to, through reason, win human minds yet the fight continues unabated for the manipulative charlatan also sounds sincere.

Canada is considered the world’s third largest reserve of oil, less only than Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. If you’ve followed the news, you know the economic plight of the citizens of Venezuela, the country with even more oil that we have. After some 20 years of full bureaucratic control, politically stripped of freedom, the citizens face food line-ups as the norm.

In this country, Ontario was once the industrial engine that drove all manufacturing. Today, entire industries are either shutting down or leaving the province. The root cause – energy cost that have double in the last 10 years due disastrous energy policies. The people living in Ontario are charged 4 times as much for their electricity as we are. And their public debt is smothering economic opportunity for their youth.

Thinking that BC is well served by BC Liberal energy policies is only possible if we compare ourselves to the energy bankrupt jurisdictions, while an objective view shows instead that we are heading down the same road to energy poverty. BC Hydro is developing future energy supplies, Site C, that are far more costly than Combine Cycle Gas electrical generation. As well, BC Hydro is contractually obligated to buy privately generated power at a higher rate than they sell it to their own customers. BC Hydro is mandated to yearly pay a ‘dividend’ to the provincial government, usually by floating a loan because they are not profitable under their current organizational structure. And then we also see various schemes where Hydro is rewarding customers for using less power.

A private company acting this way would be broke. The BC Liberals are driving the buss over the cliff and few citizens are aware that they are passengers. History is littered with the corpses of societies that took a wrong turn. Yes, we too can lose it all.

For at the root of our society’s leaders goal is to remake society into a clean, soft, harmless environment in order that people need not think, that there’s a utopian rules to guide even the most simple of people harmlessly through life. They seek to achieve what can not be, a world where reality has been beaten.

And what provides the fuel for the misdirection of a society? It is the green movement, environmentalism. Most people mistakenly think environmental issues are concerned with protecting the earth for man but scratch below the surface and the hatred for humanity becomes obvious.

From Dr Michael Hurd, “ Environmentalism is a destructive force, not a productive or progressive one. Environmentalism seeks to control, outlaw, eliminate, wipe out and ultimately restore the planet to its natural state, a state completely hostile to human needs and interests. If you sign on for environmentalism in the name of protecting human life as we know it, then you’ve signed up for the wrong cause. In the battle of man versus nature, environmentalism is unequivocally on the side of nature.”

And that brings us to crux of the issue …you need to know why and how our affluence is threatened. You need to know what makes life better and what will make it worse. It requires independent thinking on your part. Trusting another to think for us is the ultimate cause of grief. Thinking is the single thing we cannot delegate to others. You need to regain control of your life in order to have a better society.

The ultimate question for each of us to answer is do we seek control of ourselves or control of others? Too often we forget, a desire to control others works two ways. Someone will take control of you.

And so I urge you to think of the danger of casually casting a vote for the wrong person for, in an ever more  confused democracy, the misery of bad policy spreads to all.

We’ve taken the decision making process out of the hands of owner and given it to “people who pay no price for being wrong”. When bureaucrats make mistakes, their golden parachute opens and they ride off into the sunset on your tax-funded horse. It happens because we’ve become complacent and we don’t believe in our own competence.

These articles on energy are an attempt to shake you from the couch, hoping you’ll question why you need a bureaucrat to tell you can’t have a plastic bag, or incandescent light bulbs, or need to stop driving so much. And to fuel your argument when an activist tells you the bicycle is the best form of transportation.

I’m trying to persuade you to act, to resent that which we are all being denied, to bring back a world where human development and modification of the natural world is treasured and proudly cherished, not apologized for. To be aware that human achievement make life better for us all, not worse as is all to often claimed. To become a champion for energy use rather than an activist seeking to bloke all rational energy development. Yes, it is the free flow of energy that fuels our affluence….and our affluence does not destroy the earth’s ability to support life. We can control that, if we fight.