[Ron] Liepert, a former Alberta Energy Minister and Conservative candidate for Calgary Signal Hill in the upcoming 2015 election, delivered a master class in ad hominem reasoning this week for listeners of CBC Radio’s The Current.
Debating the Keystone pipeline with Greenpeace Canada’s Keith Stewart, Liepert repeatedly complained of “extreme environmentalists” with “extreme arguments” waging “extreme environmental attacks on Alberta’s oil industry” for calling for a transition to renewable energy sources.
After labelling critics of unsustainable oil and gas development as “extremists” several times, Anna Maria Tremonti finally interrupted Liepert and asked him point-blank: “Why do you call them ‘extreme environmentalists’?”
The aspiring future member of a Harper government (who recently won a heated nomination battle by defeating MP Rob Anders), explained:
“Because individuals like your guest would like to see fossil fuels eliminated across the world. That is simply not going to happen. You know, he lives in this dream world where somehow airplanes are going to fly with solar power, how transit in his city is going to be powered by renewables from wind. This is just a dream world that these extremists live in and we have to face reality. If you were to shut down the oil and gas industry in Canada today — I don’t have the statistics in front of me — but our unemployment rate would probably be pushing 20% in this country. And we’d be living in a dream world that simply cannot exist.”
There’s a bitter irony in oil and gas proponents screaming “face reality!” while disregarding reports of our dying planet
Its sad how black and white conservatives paint environmentalists and oil.
We understand you can’t just turn off oil. The point is long term investment into renewables (which will also create a shit ton of new technologies and jobs), and then gradually ease off oil.
What idiot would just pull the plug on oil instantly? If you want to crash the economy that’s a good way to go about it.
But the thing is, these right wing politicians haven’t even begun thinking about the future and what we do when extracting oil is no longer feasible or when the climate gets so messed up that our survival is at stake. Its all short term cash; no vision.
(via paronomaniac)
