A small part of the explanation for these bizarre twin phenomena lies in the great and ecumenic moral panic of our times: climate change. Yager is agnostic about the validity of so-called climate science, but he is surely correct to note that “whatever the science, or the allegation, or the cause, climate change is real if for no other reason than millions of people in Canada and hundreds of millions around the world believe it is.” This belief makes climate change primarily a political rather than a genuinely scientific issue.

Here Yager tries manfully to present facts and argue reasonably about the larger context of environmental pronouncements, aspirations and dreams. Whatever environmental computer models say: (1) there is no evidence carbon resource consumption is declining; (2) there is no workable plan to achieve carbon reduction; (3) all data and forecasts indicate increasing demand for fossil fuels; because (4) there are no practical substitutes for carbon-based products and energy sources.

Even the most determined opponents of fossil fuels are in the paradoxical business of demanding an end to the very products they depend upon. This has never, however, prompted an environmentalist to reflect on his or her predicament except, perhaps, as David Suzuki once said to the editorial board of the Calgary Herald, “This is a hypocrisy I can live with.” As Yager observes, perhaps with slight exaggeration, Alberta’s critics will buy oil from any other country in the world before they will park their car or forego their next airplane ride.

Stranger still, when governments announce their support for “renewables” or such exotic machines as electric cars, their policies have very weird consequences. In Ontario, for example, subsidizing electric cars qualified a new Tesla for a $14,000 rebate. Teslas cost somewhere above $90,000 in a province where the mean income is around $80,000, which meant the government used everyone’s tax dollars to make a Tesla more affordable to Ontario’s wealthier strata. This is akin to having Albertans with modest incomes subsidize day-care and university tuition for wealthy Quebeckers. We do that already, of course. Both are equally absurd and unjust.

Such policy paradoxes are sustained by contemporary environmentalism’s sheer mendacity. In response, Yager asks a common-sense question: Why the disconnect between climate alarmists’ predictions and their absence of effective action? The first reason is simply factual: Canada comprises 0.5 percent of the world’s population and emits 1.6 percent of so-called greenhouse gases. It is simply preposterous to believe that Canada – i.e., Alberta and Saskatchewan – could make the slightest difference in global CO 2 emissions even if our entire carbon industry disappeared. And everyone knows it.

Which brings us to the Government of Canada’s carbon tax. We are told we must pay more now (and more still in future) for a long-term promise of doubtful validity, and do so on the basis of trusting the politicians and “experts” to tell the truth and do what they say, including on the issues of rates/costs, exemptions, revenue-neutrality and rebates. The chances of everything unfolding as claimed are, in other words, vanishingly small. And if you’re aiming to save the planet by reducing carbon use through carbon taxes, how can you allow any exemptions or rebates? Further, given that Canada is such a tiny emitter compared to the big three – the U.S., China, and India – why bother?

If you really believe CO 2 threatens humanity itself, then you need to go after the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions: the downstream emitters. In Canada, that would mean shutting down Ontario and Quebec’s killer auto and airplane plants. If the Government of Canada ever mused about that it would show that it was misguided but consistent, and maybe even sincere. But we all know it will never happen. Eight-thousand auto-sector jobs being lost in eastern Canada last year caused a national uproar; twenty times that number of jobs lost in Alberta over a brutal multi-year downturn prompted only sneers and derision, when there was any reaction at all.

The immense contribution of the West’s (again, mainly Alberta’s) carbon-based resource production to Canada’s long-term prosperity and stability has triggered not gratitude but a long train of abuse: the cancellation and infinite delays of pipeline construction, tanker bans on the West Coast (Bill C-48) concurrently with the encouragement of Saudi Arabian oil imports to Quebec refineries (to the added benefit of major Saudi contractors such as Quebec’s SNC-Lavalin) and the complete politicization of the regulatory process (Bill C-69), which promises to add further layers of political manipulation, mendacity and perhaps outright corruption. The most nauseating aspect is the sadistic moralizing of federal ministers, most notably the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna. Her words are deceptive, insulting and vicious expressions of a deep-seated contempt for her benefactors.

From long before the Prairie provinces were part of Canada, this region was a place to get stuff. First beaver and buffalo pelts, then wheat, and most recently carbon. All the while the humans living in the resource-extraction region had to be controlled by the Laurentians. First it was through the royal monopolies issued by the British Crown. Upon Canada’s creation came the National Policy of the first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Later it was done through prime minister Wilfrid Laurier’s creation in 1905 of three weak provinces rather than one large one. This was followed by Ottawa’s continued control of resources “for the purposes of the Dominion”. The return of mineral resources to the new provinces in 1930 was a rare exception – but came at the very start of the Great Depression.

Decades later, after the great Post-Second World War oil and gas discoveries and the West’s burgeoning prosperity at last threatened Laurentian Canada, came stifling regulation, taxation, confiscation, and additional regulatory strangulation. Sustaining the Laurentians’ selfish efforts to control the West are the corrosive emotions of envy, resentment, contempt and at times flat-out hatred. None of this can be admitted in Laurentian Canada. The latest version of ongoing anti-Alberta bigotry is clothed in environmental clichés and platitudes. What a happy coincidence! Destroy the Alberta economy and teach Albertans, once again, their proper place in Confederation; and oh, pretend to save the planet at the same time.

Yager reaches the same conclusion with less sarcasm: “Even if pipelines help alleviate Alberta’s problem of geography, the province will never truly be master of its own destiny so long as its hydrocarbon-delivery arteries pass through other political jurisdictions, or so long as other levels of government can interfere with its resources and economic future. Further, the concern that Alberta’s bread-and-butter carbon-resource industries are a menace to the world’s climate will not go away.”

We know beyond a reasonable doubt that the massive damage to Alberta has resulted in no reduction in global or national carbon emissions. We’re also all-but certain that it isn’t going to stop, for climate policy is driven by a quasi-religious impulse or at best an ideology rather than practical or empirical considerations, let alone pure science. It is anyone’s guess how long Albertans will put up with this assault on their interests and insult to their self-respect before they recover and act on the basis of their suppressed Virtù. In the closing chapter of The Prince, Machiavelli exhorts Italians to vindicate their liberties and rid their country of barbarians. From Miracle to Menace carries a similar message and gives me reason to think that a recovery of Albertan Virtù may happen sooner than we think.

Barry Cooper is a Professor of political science at the University of Calgary.