Trans Mountain: Liberalism Won’t Address Climate Change

A day after declaring a climate emergency, Canada green lit the Trans Mountain pipeline to funnel oil and natural gas from the tar sands of land-locked Alberta through mountainous British Columbia to a port in Vancouver.

This not-so-shocking but still very insulting about-face should be understood as an illumination of liberalism’s failures. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister and the perhaps the world’s most identifiable and charismatic liberal, has cemented, as Barack Obama did, an inability or reluctance to lead, protect indigenous peoples, or meaningfully address climate change. The Trans Mountain pipeline, if constructed, trespasses indigenous land, tramples pristine subalpine forest and critical waterways while putting numerous human and non-human populations at risk.

Trudeau’s approval of this controversial piece of fossil fuel infrastructure flies directly in the face of his history of socially liberal promises. In recent years, he has made numerous public pledges to fight climate change, promises to respect indigenous rights, honor land treaties, and, earlier this month, promised to put an end to discrimination, police brutality, and alarming levels of battery, sexual assault, and kidnapping of indigenous women and girls near ‘man camps’, communities of transient, male, oil & gas workers. Like the case of the Trans Mountain pipeline, Trudeau enthusiastically makes bold promises in front of cameras yet falls far short of meaningful policy change when it counts.

Taking a page from Obama’s 2016 Standing Rock playbook, his government has ignored public opposition, both Native and non-Native, to the project, including from British Columbia’s own premier, John Horgan. Like other liberal governments trying to appease a disgruntled constituency, Trudeau stressed the need for investment balanced between energy and the environment, earmarking fossil fuel profits for green investment later and how “it is in Canada’s national interest to protect our environment and invest in tomorrow”.

Unfortunately, this statement is ridiculous. If made in 2009, it’d either be half-baked or made in bad faith. In 2019, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the former.

This week an Australian think tank released a “scenario analysis”, a projection using all available climate data to show what the world might look like if we fail to build carbon-neutral energy systems in the next ten years. “It’s worse than any of the apocalyptic Hollywood horror films making the rounds,” the Breakthrough National Center for Climate Restoration claims. Over a billion climate refugees will be fighting for survival on a less hospitable planet. Another 2–3 billion struggling for potable water, “lethal heat” for at least 3 weeks of the year, mass flooding inundating coastal cities, and so on. A disturbing, but not new, picture. Here are the same scenarios presented nearly a year ago, published shortly after the IPCC report that violently stirred the world’s environmental conscious.

Thus, it’s hard to imagine how a ‘woke’ guy like Trudeau could rationalize this pipeline. He either can’t comprehend the science (yet millions of young people around the world seem able to) or does and is choosing to extract anyway. The likelihood of the latter is cemented by the Trudeau government’s controversial and unconventional decision to buy the pipeline. Since the project was on shaky ground amid popular opposition, the government swooped in with the public purse, sidestepped red tape and weathered environmental criticism with promises of “jobs and energy independence,” another ridiculous claim as evidence indicates that pipeline jobs are temporary, while green jobs are in fact long-lasting.

Financing the pipeline should instead be seen as the transfer of the project’s fiscal and environmental risk from the private sector to the Canadian public, non-consensually and against their well-being. And as this transfer of ownership is temporary in order to secure construction, once built, it is slated to be sold back to Kinder Morgan. As it stands, the Texas-based outfit will buy the pipeline back after the controversial construction and removal of indigenous peoples, operate it and earn hefty sums from the sale of fossil fuels, and contributing nothing to the transition to renewable energy but federal taxes.

There are, however, two other scenarios to consider. By the time the pipeline is constructed, the world has recognized the ecological detriment of fossil fuels and made extraction and consumption uneconomical or even illegal, leaving the infrastructure worthless and the state, unable to sell the project, at a $4.5-7.4 billion loss. The other, the pipeline is completed, bought by Kinder Morgan, and at some point, accidentally leaks toxic chemicals into the Fraser River or the Salish Sea, destroying extremely precious ecosystems, the animal species and indigenous communities who depend on them, mutilating critical biodiversity and directly contribute to planetary destruction.

With the present ecological risks and effects of burning fossil fuels thoroughly documented, to endorse the Trans Mountain project, let alone fund it, calls into very serious question the stated motives of Justin Trudeau and others who call themselves liberals. After all, wearing trendy socks, jogging, attending pride parades, and generally being cool don’t challenge inequality, fight oppression, or protect communities on the front lines of climate change. In 2019, with masks off and curtains open, the Trans Mountain project reveals a submission to capital at the expense of human lives.

Mark Fisher posited that for many, it’s easier to imagine the end of civilization than the end of capitalism. Thus, two crucial factors for preventing environmental crisis are imagination and political will .

The unfettered imaginations of diverse groups of people, especially young and indigenous, must be harnessed moving forward. Many of the governing political and economic institutions have failed and should be discarded. Those responsible for them may have a seat at the table, but shouldn’t be allowed to lead. We must then imagine new structures and institutions, ones that strive for inclusivity, equality and ecological regeneration.

We also need political will. The technology, capital, and means of production are already available. What’s needed is the will to stand up to oligarchic machines of power, to demand a more equal distribution of resources, and facilitate an end to endless consumption and destruction. Again, we already have everything we need. Any argument contending otherwise is either half-baked or bad faith.

Liberals like Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama are relics of enormous inequality, environmental degradation and cognitive dissonance. Leaders claiming environmental consciousness while overseeing the extraction of the most natural resources EVER and repressing communities of indigenous people. Their failures and empty rhetoric has paved the way for populism, fascism, and rot. Institutions are failing and extreme xenophobia has led to outrageous human rights abuses, all the while, the center maintains a status quo they promise will hold.

It’s vital we objectively assess the failures of liberalism and glean lessons to be learned. Civilization is now at critical juncture and no matter the charisma, skin color, or purse-stash of hot sauce, traditionally liberal politicians have demonstrated their willingness to serve capital and not people. This brand of balanced politics doesn’t work because it never has. Zeroing in on a fuzzy nostalgia always finds someone being exploited, dispossessed, or worse. There’s no more time to waste and no more ground left to cede: make pledges of zero-emissions, carbon neutral energy systems, and zero, absolutely zero, fossil fuel extraction. Keep it in the ground and abandon the center.