08-28-2019, 08:04 AM
(07-24-2019, 02:03 PM)David Horn Wrote:(07-24-2019, 11:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: They (Alberta) will have to walk away from it. Oil will not be permitted as a fuel much longer, or it will be taxed to make it unprofitable. Especially such dirty oil as from tar sands. As I said, the oil industry is drying up. People won't be buying it, since cars will use other fuels. So although I know their traditions and cultures are more like Alaska and Texas, they won't have the oil money as a reason to keep them in the red state fold. At least, if the rest of Canada agrees to let the US coasts join, they won't be able to block it. They will be outvoted, and they won't secede from Canada to join Montana and Idaho and the rest of Red America.
I think your optimism is misplaced. Yes, fossil fuels will be banned at some point, but it won't be soon. Someone somewhere will still buy the stuff until the entire world threatens them with extinction if they don't. I expect to see a mostly fossil free future in my lifetime, but total? Not likely.
There will be specialized uses for fossil fuels that depend upon their portability and easy transmission. Whale oil went out of vogue as the whales became nearly extinct due to hunting.
We will eventually see governments even in America tax the Hell out of it much as European countries do.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.