Editorial

Politics of oil Source: The Ubyssey

The western world, including Canada, is floundering like a fish out of water. For too long we have been swimming in a sea of foreign oil, reacting only when our precious streams stop flowing as they should.

We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and yet we thrash our tails about and jerk back and forth when oil is threatened.

After the Meech Lake Accord failed, the Mulroney government put the Hibernia mega-project off the shores of newfoundland on hold. the project, which will set up the infrastructure for extracting oil from the Atlantic ocean, is steamrolling ahead now in the face of this current "energy crisis."

Oil-is cheap. And oil from the third world is even cheaper. Multinationals need this foreign oil because poorer countries need to sell, so places like Canada can set the price. Now that this price is high, up to a consumer price of 69.9 cents a litre in some places, these companies can serve to make even more by claiming crisis. Will the prices drop when the rigs start pumping again?

How loudly we cry for energy alternatives such as natural gas when our oil is threatened, but where are the cries when the black gold flows freely? They are silent.

How loudly do we hear those bankrupted by the oil _ booms of the 70’s crying out that they were shafted when, after the OPEC crisis was resolved, the wells were capped, the workers canned, and the fat tunas grew fatter than ever? We don’t hear them at all.

In places such as AJaska, where a thousand miles of coastline was devastated by millions of litres of our valuable dependency, fouling the lives of people and animals alike,m they are starting to call for rapid development of new potential reserves. These

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reserves are in designated wilderness areas where one spill would make the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez look like a drop in the bucket.

If we are really concerned about gas prices, or conflict in the Middle East we should look at the

‘ long standing history and policy on our dependence

on the third world’s oil. It is not a recent problem, the gas lines of the seventies are a good reminder of that. We need to reduce, reuse, and recycle oil, and hopefully eliminate its consumption, period. We also need to dispassionately, and calmly look at energy alternatives, even during times where the tease of Texas oil still to be extracted titillates us.

Flopping around like suffocating fish is pointless, and fattening up on black gold is lazy, irresponsible,

and utterly reprehensible. Instead, we should simply be intelligent human beings.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Congratulations to the University Theatre Society

for its recent production of "Love is Strange". It provided a very enjoyable evening’s entertainment. It was well-acted, well-staged and well-directed. Derek Martin, the entire cast, and production crew deserve one more loud round of applause.

Ian MacDonald Extension Department

Dear Editor:

The following is in response to both your invitation to submit mindless babble to your editorial column and the dialogue between professors and students on academic responsibility, held last Friday, November 16. I found the discussion interesting, but as with most philosophical forums, time constraints left most of the audience unable to participate. Frustrated, I left the room with uncommunicated. ideas struggling to emerge when I realized the X-Press would be an excellent sounding board for my (and others’) thoughts on the matter.

The UPEI X-Press

November 22, 1990

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