Ms. Hawkwood’s response to recent letters illustrates how ill informed Canadians are regarding the carbon tax. To place the blame for emissions on the oil and gas industries is a simplification. In addition to the petroleum industry, equal causes of GHG emissions include synthetic fertilizer use, extensive livestock farming, deforestation and industrial processes like cement manufacturing. Even if the carbon tax was directed specifically at oil and gas production, it couldn’t improve upon what the industry is already doing to clean up its act. Examples include improved seals to prevent leaks on industrial machinery, the extensive use of synthetic lubricants (much of it provided by refined oil sands production), to permit equipment operators to extend oil changes well beyond those initially recommended by manufacturers. (How many Canadians continue changing oil at 5,000 kilometre intervals using standard mineral based oils because they’re cheaper)? Diagnostic technologies such as ultrasound and thermographic imaging are used to monitor equipment to “leak proof” areas of emission potential on machinery. Turbine operators use water or steam injection to dramatically reduce nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and other emissions. Drilling platforms are using biodegradable oils so as not to harm water sources. To accuse the oil and gas industry of paying royalties of only one per cent is untrue. In fact, the oil and gas royalties paid in Alberta range from one per cent to nine per cent on conventional wells and from 24 per cent to 40 per cent on oil sands operations, depending upon the current oil price and the total cost of the operation. (The royalty rates would have been even higher if it had been left up to the NDP’s environmentalist adviser Tzeporah Berman, whose salary was disingenuously paid by the Alberta taxpayer even while encouraging Notley to further gouge the oil industry). Ms. Hawkwood suggests that the research offered is “wildly inaccurate” and implies that it comes from industry estimates of emission amounts. The research that was provided came from independent sources, which I would gladly share with her if she wishes to refute it. I would remind Ms. Hawkwood that subsequent to the Paris accords, a United Nations' sponsored international meeting was held in Marrakech Morroco in 2014 at which 111 countries attended including Canada. The meeting concluded with a decision that only those countries with a combined 17 per cent of global emissions would honour the decisions made at the conference?? Think about that? What about the remaining emissions of 83 per cent? If the remaining countries in attendance could walk away from their agreements just how committed is the rest of the world? As to Ms. Hawkwood’s criticism of oil company subsidies, according to the International Energy Agency, third world countries continue to provide carbon emitting fuel subsidies to their own people, the total amount of which is $493 billion dollars! If one can’t afford the fuel, one can’t afford to drive, yet these idiotic practices remain unchallenged by the international community including Canada, that help to perpetuate this foolishness with taxpayer funded foreign aid! Finally, Ms. Hawkwood reminds us that pollution in Canada is higher “per capita” than almost any country in the world. Canada ranks 15th in the world in this statistic, but the reasoning is seriously flawed when relating our tiny population with countries like China or the U.S. Canada’s “total tons” of emissions per million are 154.84 or 4.9 per capita. If the total tons for Canada were based on a population of a country of similar size like China or the U.S. our emissions per capita would be .12 and .53 respectively. Canada remains one of the cleanest countries in the world and regardless of the socialist, environmentalist rhetoric, there can be absolutely no justification for any carbon tax. To conclude, I give Ms. Hawkwood credit on the subject of hydraulic fracturing. She is correct in her description of the potential problems associated with this practice. I only wish she had done a better job of eliminating the “half truths and distortions” that she presented in her letter. L. Leugner
