Earth scientist David Hughes has become well known in certain circles as the Cassandra of the oilpatch.
Cassandra, as the classically educated will recall, was the priestess of Apollo cursed to foretell the truth and never persuade anyone. A figure of Greek myth, and a walk-on part with a few lines in Shakespeare, everyone thought she was nuts.
Back in 2016, when Alberta’s New Democrats were changing before our eyes into another centre-right conservative party dedicated fighting for pipelines, Mr. Hughes published a study that concluded there was no way Canada could meet its global climate commitments if it kept building new export pipelines and ramping up oil extraction.
This seems pretty obvious, but at the time everyone who was anyone in Alberta acted like he was nuts.
Mr. Hughes also predicted that “new pipelines with tidewater access will not significantly increase the price Canada receives for its oil.”
This also seemed obvious to anyone who paid any attention to economics. But it challenged one of the political orthodoxies of the era, that building pipelines to tidewater and shipping ever increasing amounts of Alberta bitumen to Asia would magically repeal the iron law of supply and demand.
The belief that pipelines could defy economic gravity and overcome low world oil prices helped Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party…
MORE ARTICLES
Public inquiry, conducted in secret, gets another extension to find elusive foreign funders of ‘anti-Alberta’ campaigns
How propaganda became memory: Pierre Trudeau, Alberta and the National Energy Program
UCP plan to lay off 11,000 public sector health workers sparks wildcat walkouts at 45 Alberta health facilities
Earth scientist David Hughes, latter-day Cassandra, predicts completed TMX will see extra losses for every barrel shipped to Asia
Public inquiry, conducted in secret, gets another extension to find elusive foreign funders of ‘anti-Alberta’ campaigns
How propaganda became memory: Pierre Trudeau, Alberta and the National Energy Program
UCP plan to lay off 11,000 public sector health workers sparks wildcat walkouts at 45 Alberta health facilities
Activate the COVID Alert App in Alberta. Activate it right now!
What was Saskatchewan’s media doing when it wasn’t reporting on Scott Moe’s driving record?
Forever chaste? Or just chased? Former Reform MP and Kenney comrade Rob Anders faces new challenges
Death toll from fall of Montreal statue still stands at zero, but apoplectic Wexiters may be at risk
If Press Gallery membership for the Rebel is so important, why are Postmedia reporters still in the gallery in Ottawa?
What’s making Ottawa’s environment minister suddenly give the Vista coal mine proposal the fish eye?
Fourth of July Fever: Pay attention when your neighbour has a breakdown; it may be contagious
OK, Canada’s good to go for those 3M medical masks — at least until Donald Trump changes his mind again
The coronavirus pandemic: Not good news for anyone, but probably worse news for the West than China
With coronavirus chaos south of the line, brace yourself for some of it to come to our way in Canada
France is in turmoil and all we hear is crickets — what gives?
