Reaching for Energy Independence – Linda McQuaig


After finishing It’s the Crude Dude by Linda McQuaig (which I don’t recommend – see review on the left) I started thinking again on the track of energy independence. Although there are many flaws in McQuaig’s logic, such as ignoring basic economic principles of supply and demand and glazing over historical events such as Saddam Hussein’s brutal treatment of his own people, she did have one shining good point… we have to find alternatives to oil to fuel our energy demand.
She states that the oil industry is actually subsidized in many ways, through:
- government subsidies to the energy sector
- car sector that encourages this mode of transportation over rail
- tax advantages promoting the use of the car
- billions of dollars on the construction and maintenance of roads (which outweighs the amount collected in gasoline taxes)
She also mentions the multi-billion-dollar invasion of Iraq as a hidden cost of oil. Whether you agree with McQuaig’s political views or not, at least one of the points above must resonate. Imagine if we leveraged even a fraction of those billions of dollars towards researching and distributing alternatives to oil such as hydrogen energy? We would certainly be ahead of the of where we are today.
With the Global Warming Effect now nearly certain according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported by the BBC:
In 2001, it said that it was "likely" that human activities lay behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet; "likely" in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability.
Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.
Why don’t we move our money and subsidies to non-polluting, renewable resources? I was happy to see at leat one US politician, Hillary Clinton, talking about the potential to move the US (who has 4% of the world population and produces 25% of the emissions according to McQuaig) in a direction of alternatives.
This is another topic which it is easy to get discouraged by, but the fact that there are alternatives if we reach for them offers at least some optimism for our future. It also allows us to move to a world where we are relying on science for our energy rather than on a non-renewable resource at the center of many of our world conflicts.


I was at the gym on Sunday watching the screens while running and sweating and CBC veteran reporter




