This is a different time. More than ever folks are questioning the assumptions behind our entire system and finding them wanting. A non-zero number of countries will choose to build anew rather than rebuild a system we all knew needed enormous structural changes. The brightest countries will make the switch to the next generation of energy, a circular and/or donut economy and a more future-facing climate-friendly existence. Canada will choose this route & it's up to Albertans to decide whether we show leadership or get dragged kicking & screaming.
Alberta's oil-only economy was in structural peril long far before the coronavirus shut down 'business as usual' across the entire planet. At its lowest point a barrel of oil was of literal negative value. When the pandemic has come and gone every oil/gas country will have stockpiled more product than we know how to store. Alberta is about to learn first hand the bedrock principle of Economics 101: Supply and Demand.
There will be enormous pressure from corporations, industries and the billionaires to return things to exactly as they were as soon as we can, perhaps even before it's safe. Many of us will be happy to return to any semblance of normalcy without learning the principle lesson of our pandemic/pause/reset: normalcy was already broken, backwards and headed for disaster in an astonishing array of different fiery wrecks. And then there's Alberta:
Recent history strongly suggests the big oil companies are going to take every stimulus cent Canada gives them and then toss this province over it's shoulder like an empty beer can while Premiere Kenney will get rich off the transactions and keep feathering the nest for his national run. But by all means prove me wrong. Please.
Regardless, however Alberta Oil and Gas chooses to engage the astonishingly terrifying array of different global, structural challenges it has coming at them, it's up to those of us with the right sorts of eyes to start pulling together the Big What Else. Or, if you prefer, the AND.
Some folks in this province will never go along with anything other than supreme focus on oil and gas at the expense of literally anything else. That's okay. That's actually how populations work. If your goal is to motivate a population of people to adopt an innovation or, as is the case with an Alberta New Deal, a *suite* of innovations, the first thing you need to accept is you'll never get everybody onboard. You don't even *want* everybody. You start by #MindingTheCurve and 'Getting the Gettable.' Every population has get-ables. Just ask the start-up world:
The Alberta New Deal *is* that Whole Product Development. It must be crafted amidst Alberta's 'Innovator' and 'Early Adopter' populations and from those populations will spring our first Well Established References which we use to then onboard increasingly more Well Established References. The A.N.D. needs to meet our employment, health and climate/future-readiness requirements and it has to make sense to the money people. If you have all that the Alberta New Deal can 'Get-the Gettable' in this province.
It's not about bringing onboard a provincial government dead set on advancing anything other than oil/gas at the expense of literally everything else. It's about 'Getting the Getable' from all Albertans and from our municipal level and federal levels. Ultimately it's putting a choice before all Albertans about what we want from the post coronavirus rebuild/build up. Absent an alternative we will only slide even further into an already doomed status quo.
What are some of the things you think Alberta could be doing to diversify our economy and safeguard our endangered energy workers and rural communities? What solutions would you like to see as part of an Alberta New Deal? Which Innovators and Early Adopters do you think we need to onboard? What Well Established References might support this initiative?
The time for this is NOW. I hope you'll join me.
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p.s. There's merit in learning how 4 term Republican Mayor Mick Cornett got the bombed out oil/gas town Oklahoma City to adopt a suite of initiatives that resulted in an attractive, walkable, breathable city that had the kids moving back to instead of away from.
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