Kinder Morgan not the environmental problem
What is in it for B.C. to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion vs. allowing it?
There are jobs, money, but more so we can sell our product at global market prices, vs. the the current 40 per cent discounted prices we are currently selling it at to the only buyer we are able to sell it to, and they know that, and are taking advantage of us.
That additional revenue will hopefully bring in a good portion of taxes and royalties to pay for the spending spree the current government has inflicted more debt on us, so hopefully you and I don’t have to pay for it all.
All the spills in the life of the existing pipeline are a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the combined pollution the three million people living on the Lower Mainland are producing, and each one of Kinder Morgan’s is cleaned up. Why stop the one that makes the most revenue per environmental impact for the province and country? It amounts to making them the scapegoat to justify the rest of our pollution.
Oct 12, 2016 a tugboat sinks near Prince Rupert with 223,831 liters of diesel spilling. How much revenue for the province and country did that tug boat bring over its life relative to its environmental impact?
The truth is we all make environmental impact directly and indirectly by what we consume to exist. Just like taxes, it is the small environmental changes by the masses that make the most impact to the end result, than a huge change to one big source.
It just makes us feel good if we say we had some impact in getting a big environmental impact stopped, even though it is miniscule in the big picture. Then telling ourselves we don’t have to change our impact.
I say all this at the same time I put my money and my actions to make an environmental difference more than those that protest the pipeline.
My house has more solar panels than energy it uses. None of my vehicles are more than four cylinder engines, even my work truck I use to pull my excavator and skid steer. Thus using 40 per cent less fuel to do the same job as those using a V8 so they can maintain highway speed limits going up hills.
Steven Kostamo
North Cowichan