Which Kinder Morgan pipeline protest rally did you attend last weekend?
The one opposed? Or the one in favour?
I almost went to the pro-Kinder Morgan rally just to see what a pro-Kinder Morgan protester looks like. My impression is that they look like the opposite of Neil Young: trim haircuts, narrow ties and mobile phone utility holsters.
But that’s probably an unjustified stereotype. You have to be careful when you think in unjustified stereotypes.
Anyway, the duelling protests reflect the duality of the Lower Mainland mind – polls consistently show a 50-50 split in opposed or in favour of the pipeline, with the highest percentage of supporters coming from the male over-50 demographic.
So would that be a scientifically valid stereotype? Surely there are men over 50 who oppose the pipeline, just as there are women, such as Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who are in favour.
Then there’s me, perpetually 39, who’s been dithering about this thing in these pages for years. I’m a caricature of Lower Mainland duality: my left brain understands the need to seek competitive export markets for our products, while my right brain reels at the product itself – diluted bitumen, or dilbit, which is a volatile combination of diabolical substances that come from the bowels of Alberta – and the potential impact a spill or explosion would have on our beautiful North Shore.
Recently, despite scorn and ridicule from my friends on the pro-pipeline side, I’ve become more firmly opposed. And there’s at least one other male over 50 who agrees with me.
His name is Michael McCarthy, a North Shore author who publishes and self-publishes like a man with wordsmithing superpowers. (Faster than a speeding stenographer!) Michael is on the verge of self-publishing Saving Wilderburb: The Fight Against Global Warming and Pipelines. We connected when he discovered on Google that we have the term “wilderburb” in common, from a column I wrote last year.
Wilderburb, you might suspect, is the term for a suburb bordering on wilderness. The North Shore is a wilderburb, maybe the mother of all wilderburbs, one that is becoming increasingly fragile with every highrise built, every pipeline expanded.
Michael sent me a note pointing out something that needs to be appreciated anew: that the main reasons people visit Vancouver are Stanley Park and the Capilano Suspension Bridge, two of the most accessible near-wildernesses on earth. You could add the ski mountains, which are popular portals into the “back country,” a wilderness that runs all the way to Alaska. And while North Shore Rescue probably wants to do a Donald Trump and fence off the entire backcountry, our status as one of the world’s foremost wilderburbs is high.
And it would crater instantly if there’s an oopsie from a tanker heading out of Burrard Inlet after filling up at the pipeline. If just 20 per cent of a single tanker load is spilled, it would permanently ruin the shoreline from Lighthouse Park to Cates Park.
And that’s not me talking; that’s the conclusion of a report commissioned by the City of Vancouver, Burnaby and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, by Genwest Systems Inc. out of Edmonds, Wash.
Of course, you say. They’re all opposed to the pipeline. But maybe this report is a good reason why they’re opposed. This report is now nearly three years old, and remains the most compelling testimony against the pipeline expansion.
It’s certainly the main reason my wilderburb buddy is opposed, but he has others, which you can read for yourself in Saving Wilderburb. For the record: both North Vancouver jurisdictions are also anti-pipeline.
It seems to me that we’re in danger of forgetting why we love this place in the first place, why so many people want to come and live here.
Not just for the world-class real estate speculation. It’s because we’re on the doorstep of one of Mother Nature’s last truly wild sanctuaries, yet her pleas are becoming increasingly hard to hear in the din of protest and politics.
The economic argument is often cited by the pro-pipeline people as the smart argument. Maybe it is, but not in the way we often see it. The wilderburb is a brand promise that speaks to millions.
Those millions arrive every year bringing a willingness to stand in line to see a big tree or what a river looks like when it’s not on fire. Not to mention foreign exchange.
This is the argument that the City of Vancouver makes at the risk of being sneered at as a cult of tree huggers.
Tree huggers they may be, but at least they understand what the trees are worth.
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. [email protected]
