This is a revised version of a column that first appeared in the April 7, 2006 edition of The Citizen:
It wasn't so long ago when having more of the basic staples than you needed made perfect sense.
In Prince George's infancy, residents would make sure they had enough firewood to get them through the winter... and a little bit more just in case the winter was particularly harsh and either they ran low or their neighbour did.
In that light, the opposition to building the Site C dam on the Peace River near Fort St. John seems confusing. Despite all our best efforts at consuming less electricity, we're going to need more sources of power in the future. You can only sell so many energy-efficient lightbulbs and Christmas lights.
Opponents wring their hands at the environmental and social cost of building the Site C dam. Some people will be displaced, some land will be flooded.
Is that it?
Would the folks complaining about the potential environmental damage of Site C prefer the air emissions of coal-fired power plants, fuelled by Tumbler Ridge coal?
And there's always nuclear power. The Southern Interior is loaded with uranium waiting to be mined. A nuclear reactor built in Rock Creek or Grand Forks could provide B.C. and Alberta with lots of power, with the excess sold to nearby customers in Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Suddenly, a big dam on the Peace doesn't look so bad.
Even if the worst-case scenarios came to pass and the Site C project ends up costing $10 billion, so what? That's $10 billion in 2014 dollars. That will sound like a bargain in 2064, when Site C would still be pumping out power.
The policy wonks whispering into the ears of major world leaders call it resource security. Some academics, like Michael T. Klare, see natural resources fuelling global conflict over the next century and beyond. During one of his previous visits to Prince George, Gwynne Dyer made a compelling case for why the Third World War will be fought between India and China over a dwindling amount of fresh water coming off the shrinking glaciers in the Himalayas.
The global economy, not to mention the standard of living and well-being of many of its residents, is heavily reliant on a stable global energy supply and there are no reasons to believe that will change anytime soon.
Countries enjoying resource security at the moment are producing more than or the same as they consume. Canada joins the Middle East and Russia at the top of the resource security list while China, India, Australia and England consume roughly the same amount of energy as they produce. Meanwhile, countries like France, Germany, Korea and Japan are at enormous energy security risk. That's why Germany and Japan, in particular, have invested so heavily in alternative and renewable energy sources. They want to reduce their energy security risk and be less dependent on the whims of a fickle marketplace to satisfy their needs.
Resource security has to include more than energy, however. What about food? Water? Wood? Minerals? B.C. is blessed with all of these and will continue to be so, as long as we harvest our natural resources in a sustainable fashion. Soil erosion, urban expansion, dwindling fish stocks, water pollution and forest pests should be seen more as threats to the provincial economy, not just environmental inconveniences.
From a global and resource security perspective, the Site C dam not only makes sense; it begs the question of why it wasn't built sooner.
Of course, building a hydroelectric dam is environmentally invasive, but after the initial impact a renewable, clean source of energy is in place. That being said, the rights and future needs of landowners and First Nations must be accommodated. Exploiting a small group of rural aboriginal people to build a dam has a history in Canada of blowing up in the faces of powerful politicians. The modern First Nations movement as a political and legal force in Canada was born over opposition to the James Bay hydroelectric project in Northern Quebec during the 1970s and 1980s.
Constructing the Site C dam isn't for us; it's for our children. They'll thank us for having the foresight to put aside some extra firewood for them.
It's not if, but when, there will be rough winters ahead.
Let's be ready.
