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I spoke recently with a former heavy-duty mechanic and project manager who used to oversee multimillion dollar energy projects. He’s now making $16 an hour helping people design their kitchens at a local big box hardware store. He mentioned that the guy working in the plumbing department is a certified engineering technologist and piping designer. And these guys had to fight for the jobs they now have.

Some of my friends have had to think long and hard about what they would do without an income for more than two months. I worry that they will have to dig deeper than that.

We have an incredible pool of innovators and self-starters here in Alberta who have the ability to develop real solutions to the real problems our world faces. It’s time to get down to business.

Climate change discussions have to step away from the environmental pulpit and focus on economic benefits. We must demonstrate that renewable technologies are in fact economically viable, and that Albertans’ skills are needed for them to have more traction.

Alberta is stuck with hundreds (soon to be thousands) of “orphan” oil wells that have been abandoned. Let’s have a conversation about repurposing them for geothermal energy. I can see that going somewhere, where simply telling my coworkers that oil production has to wind down is going to get us nowhere.

Photo by Ryan Wellicome / -

That’s why I’m an active member of Iron & Earth, an oilsands worker-led group calling for investment in skills-transfer training. I have confidence that we can find forward-thinking solutions to the challenges Alberta faces, and that our current governments will do the right thing if we push them in that direction.

Albertans don’t have to live our lives at the mercy of a volatile boom-and-bust cycle. We can also do something about climate change, which is real and the biggest threat facing our world. So while the fossil fuel business may not disappear tomorrow, let’s diversify our province’s economy.

Now’s the time harness our expertise and entrepreneurial spirit by getting oilpatch workers back on the job in renewables.

Kerry Oxford is a mechanical engineering technologist with expertise reviewing gas compression and process equipment.