Oil and gas is a very lucrative business, and very generous to Alberta and to Canada. Every year it favours us with many billions of dollars in taxes and royalties for governments, profits for corporations and jobs and wages for workers. We recognize our good fortune—an Ipsus poll showed that 83 percent of us support more exports of oil and gas.

We repay the industry’s favours with favours of our own. Our governments lavish the industry with tax breaks and funding. Lately we have even taken to building pipelines for the bitumen pedlars, a policy supported, according to an Angus Reid poll, by 56 percent of us.

There is, of course, a fly in this ointment. The combustion of fossil fuels is the main driver of humanity’s greatest threat, global warming. Fossil fuels are responsible for 75 percent of the greenhouse gasses we dump into the atmosphere.

While we reluctantly recognize the problem, we really don’t want to slow down the gravy train. The Alberta government intends to double the province’s oil production over the next 10-15 years. Let the good times keep on rolling.

The other provinces aren’t helping. Ontario, our largest province, has repealed its climate accountability laws. BC, following Ottawa’s lead, dropped its consumer carbon tax. Quebec is backtracking on its commitment to reduce emissions, complaining that Quebecers can’t be the only ones in North America making significant efforts to fight climate change. 

We do what people do when their conscience intrudes on their pleasure. We rationalize. We weasel. The most common rationalizations to justify ever more oil and gas production are that we only contribute a small amount of the world’s total emissions, and anyway if we don’t do it, someone else will.

The first is pure deception. Yes, Canada does represent only a small amount of total global emissions, but countries don’t emit. People and organizations do. Canadians do, and Canadians are among the world’s worst emitters. Per capita we, along with the Australians and the Americans, are the worst emitters among the people of the advanced nations, far worse than the Brits or the Germans or the Japanese or anyone else.

Each one of us is responsible for twice as many emissions as the average Chinese. Twice! The Chinese have no oil and gas to speak of so they are forced to rely heavily on coal, yet they still account for only half the emissions we do. So much for Canadians and small amounts.

As for the second rationalization, that someone else will produce the stuff if we don’t, that is almost certainly true. And it puts a finger on the problem. Almost nobody is doing what is necessary.

If we all use this excuse, then no one ever will do what is necessary, and the job won’t get done. The world will go on heating, catastrophes will increase in number and intensity, and civilization will come down around our ears.

Someone has to stop weaselling and take responsibility. Someone has to lead, and we Canadians are obligated to be leaders. Why us? For two reasons. First, because we are leading emitters, and we have contributed much more than our share of the garbage in the atmosphere. Second, because we have profited more than our share from the rewards of creating the problem. In short, we owe. We are in debt to the rest of humanity.

If I said we are also obliged to lead simply because we are good people would I be naïve? In any case, it’s time for Canadians to own up and do the right thing.