ReturnToTheTarSands

I read this in Calgary at our media event for my fellow riders, friends, and family that had gathered with us.

woosh woosh woosh-The rhythms of our feet on the pedals.
clank woosh woosh-Punctuated by shifting gears as the terrain demands.

A funny thing has happened to me in our trip so far as I bike for the first time roads south of my home in Calgary that before I had only driven. Going slower, I notice details that the much faster pace of a car had obscured.

I plead with you, my fellow Albertans, to slow down and allow ourselves the luxury of working out the details: What are we going to do with the escalating homelessness problem and those who can’t keep up with the skyrocketing costs of life here? How will we remediate these blemishes, the oil and gas burps, that continue to pop up all over our beautiful landscapes? We are arrogant to assume that we can recreate in decades what nature took millennia to construct. What will we do about water? Where are we going? Are our appetites for material gain so insatiable that we cannot begin to ask ourselves when is enough growth enough?

We are building ourselves a tower, hastily smacking layer upon layer in our quest to the heaven of Mammon, the god of money, with little concern over how inequitably his riches have been shared. But I fear, my fellow Albertans, that we are not together in this. The language my government uses to speak with industry of more economic growth at the cost of enormous environmental damage is not the language I speak of:
1. Justice for the least privileged in our society;
2. A clean atmosphere and stable climate;
3. An intact Athabasca region for our seventh generation of Albertans;
4. Protection of the species and remarkably beautiful and vital ecosystems in which we’ve carved our province.

I worry. I worry that as this tumorous tower we are building continues to expand, we are losing a common language, a common understanding of what it is to be Albertan.
I fear. I fear that we are nearing bitumen babel–the point when all of this growth comes crashing down and we are left dumbfounded in our lack of planning for a sustainable energy future in Alberta, lacking the common languages, common understandings, that could get us there.

Let’s control the future of the oil sands and not let the oil sands control the future of Alberta.

Like my fellow cyclists and I, the first step is to slow down and give ourselves the luxury of perspective that a slower pace affords.

clank woosh woosh-Let’s change gears.
woosh woosh woosh-Let’s slow down.

Filed under: Commentary, TTTS on September 1st, 2007