Calgary 鈥� David Yager, one of the leading editorial commentators in the Canadian oilpatch, finally got so fed up with the way the oil industry has been denigrated in recent years, he determined to write a book about it.
The result is From Miracle to Menace:聽 Alberta, a Carbon Story, released on April 10. The self-published book is currently available as an ebook online at miracletomenace.ca, but a printed version will soon be available. Yager had to interrupt the interview briefly to take delivery of hundreds of pound worth of hardcopies.
Yager鈥檚 early career included being co-owner of The Roughneck, an oilfield trade magazine. Since then he鈥檚 been a founder, executive and director of three successful TSX-listed oilfield service companies. When he divested the most recent, HSE Integrated Inc., he went to work for MNP as their in-house oilfield services expert. These days he writes for Energy Now and is looking forward to retirement. He works as an energy policy analyst, consultant, executive and writer.
But for 30 years Yager has wanted to write a book, and the current politics around oil and the carbon economy got him wound up enough to do just that.
Speaking to Pipeline Newson April 18, he noted he鈥檚 going to have to do an update as a result of the 鈥渕erciful disappearance of the NDP鈥� as the government of Alberta in the election of two days earlier. Yager鈥檚 politics are well-known, as he is formerly president of the now-defunct Wild Rose Party of Alberta.
And politics is definitely a part of this book. He noted that oil first became political in a military sense, when the Royal Navy converted from coal to oil-fueled warships.
Historically, Yager noted, 鈥淢ost of the (political) battles were about not enough oil, and it cost too much.
鈥淣ow it鈥檚 the completely opposite. It doesn鈥檛 cost enough and there鈥檚 too much of it. Hence they鈥檙e bringing carbon taxes in.鈥�
Yager is wary of people making money on climate change without changing the atmosphere鈥檚 content.
鈥淭his is class warfare disguised as climate change,鈥� he said.
The first line of the book is, 鈥淭he current debate about climate change, and what mankind should do about it, has deteriorated to the point of absurdity.鈥�
Yager noted, 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to destroy the Canadian economy for votes. This is the fraud of the whole thing.鈥�
Yager looks back at the Alberta economy, starting from the Leduc oil strike. He noted that from 1971 to 205, 23 per cent of the province鈥檚 revenue came from non-renewable resource income.
The book recounts the history of how we came to this point, with the 1972 United Nations Stockholm Summit legitimizing environment non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club as actors on the world stage, through the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 to today.
He points out that early on, India linked the environment with social justice, essentially saying the West screwed up the world, and they weren鈥檛 going to pay for it.
To pick a turning point, where the climate change discussion went from conferences and scientists to mainstream, Yager points to the 2006 movie by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, which won both an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize for Gore.
鈥淭hey started showing it in classrooms,鈥� he said, and those kids are now of voting age.
鈥淐limate change moved from scientists and diplomats to the mainstream.鈥�
Yager included a chapter on the internet, and he touched on the diminishment of conventional media, which used to employ extensive fact-checking.
鈥淎ll of a sudden, there were no fact checkers,鈥� he said, nothing that a majority of young people get all their news from social media now.
The results is a 鈥減arallel universe,鈥� where the City of Victoria brings in cruise ships, but wants oil companies to pay it for climate change expenses.
Since climate change is where the money is, 鈥淎ll the ENGOs reinvented themselves as climate change experts.鈥�
He doesn鈥檛 spare the politicians who bought into this, either, pointing to current federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherin McKenna, former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and former Alberta Premier Rachel Notley.
鈥淥ntario loses its mind,鈥� he said.
It wasn鈥檛 always this way. The first pipeline from Edmonton to the United States, the Interprovincial Pipe Line (now known as Enbridge), was conceived, permitted and built in 20 months, and that included passing through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Edmonton to Burnaby Trans Mountain Pipeline was accomplished in 18 months.
鈥淭here was a time this was a country, and that鈥檚 how the country got built,鈥� Yager said.
Yager said that global fuel demand is rising, and yet Alberta has become ground zero for what the world is supposed to become 鈥� the decarbonized economy.
鈥淚f they鈥檙e successful, this will be the largest economic disruption in history. Didn鈥檛 anybody tell you?鈥� he said ironically.
鈥淭he fact is, we鈥檙e not going out of the oil business anytime soon,鈥� Yager said, adding 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have a Plan B.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that a lot of Albertans really understand how the economy works.鈥�
Yager said the reason Alberta has three million more people than either Manitoba or Saskatchewan is directly because of its carbon-based economy. It didn鈥檛 even get good soil compared to its Prairie province brethren.
Canada is the fifth largest oil producer in the world. 鈥淎lberta without oil is Manitoba with mountains,鈥� he said.
鈥淒ecarbonizing means destroying the economy of Alberta,鈥� he said, noting downtown Calgary would make Detroit look good in comparison.
