Canada described as one of the two top “profligate energy users on the planet”
A biting article from the Economist magazine on Canada’s green policies, published here. The author highlights several ways that we have been lax on the environment, saying Canada is one of the two top “profligate energy users on the planet,” yet it has spent “little time over the last eight years” discussing what we might do “to combat climate change and the environment.”
On a discussion of our “dirty oil”, it discusses how we have been fighting for an exemption from a 2007 rule that bars the American government from buying fuels that produce too much carbon dioxide, or at least more than produced by conventional sources. The Energy Independence and Security Act, was signed into law in December 2008 by President Bush, and it puts the oil ssands at a disadvantage compared to easy-to-harvest oil from the wellhead.
Summing up, it says “some people in the industry still believe that America’s need for oil is so great that it cannot afford to reject oil, however dirty, from a secure supplier.”
However, with Obama’s continued green policy announcements, these people seem increasingly misguided, the article concludes.