I have just returned from the Watershed Gathering at Wollaston Lake August 19th to 23rd. Five hundred people attended this event which was only accessible by plane or boat. Some Dene travelled four days by canoe to attend. Protecting water clearly draws on deep commitment.
Indian elder, Oren Lyons, speaks of the path we are on and the upcoming point of no return we are collectively approaching.
Saskatchewan’s economy is second only to Alberta’s in oil and gas export. The fossil fuels mostly go south to the US, which, along with China, is the biggest energy glutton on the planet.
Governments that believe the industrial economy depends on the continuing use of fossil fuels want to maintain business-as-usual. Consequently the federal and provincial governments subsidize technology that pumps C02 into oil fields to enhance private oil recovery, and then justify this because it involves some carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is naively treated as a tech-fix for reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs). But CCS comes from the same paradigm that got us into the climate crisis, and, anyway, it's more cost-effective and creates more local employment to go directly to renewables.
