If there were an active oil pump jack or two on every farm in the province, we likely wouldn鈥檛 be worried about latest jobs numbers.
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However, if there were a pump jack or two on every farm, we would still likely have to worry about greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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Now, many people 鈥� perhaps many people in rural Saskatchewan whose livelihoods do depend on agriculture, oil and gas or mining 鈥� may still subscribe to the notion that GHG is not a problem that鈥檚 lead to manmade global warming.
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But let鈥檚 be clear that that鈥檚 not even the position of the Saskatchewan Party government that鈥檚 been the staunchest opponent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau鈥檚 $50 a tonne (by 2022) carbon tax.
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Consider what Premier Brad Wall government said it would do and what it has actually done to address GHG emissions.
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In the Sask. Party鈥檚 2007 election campaign platform, it promised its government would stabilize GHGs emissions by 2010 and reduce GHG emissions by 32 per cent by 2020.
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Wall鈥檚 government also invested $1.4 billion in $1.6-billion Boundary Dam carbon capture and storage 鈥� a massive financial expenditure.
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The Wall government passed the 2010 Management and Reduction of Greenhouse Gases Act aimed at tracking and limiting emissions and forced emitters to pay into a technology fund. (Essentially, this, too, was a form of carbon pricing, although the Wall government doesn鈥檛 听 听 听 听like to acknowledge that.)
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In October 2016, Wall responded to the federal carbon tax with the White Paper on Climate Change. 鈥淲e should be focusing our efforts on innovation and adaptation, not taxation,鈥� Wall said last year.
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And last week, Environment Minister Dustin Duncan released the Prairie Resilience: A Made-in-Saskatchewan Climate Change Strategy. It addresses the impact of climate change on Saskatchewan, lowers the definition of a 鈥渉eavy emitter鈥� as 25,000 tonnes of CO2 annually 听 听 听 听rather than 50,000 tonnes and calls for additional monitoring of GHG emissions.
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And Duncan hinted after his announcement that there would be more to come.
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So accepting that even a provincial government vehemently opposed to a carbon tax has recognized and acted on the need to reduce GHG emissions, how should we make the best of this situation?
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Well, let鈥檚 consider another huge problem in the province right now 鈥� 6,400 less Saskatchewan people working in November compared with a year early.
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It is an on-going problem that the province鈥檚 foremost statistician Doug Elliott calls a 鈥渏ob recession.鈥� And those hardest hit by this downturn are in the rural south half of the province where employment in November was done five- to seven-per-cent. In Regina and 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 Saskatoon,听 jobs have actually increased by about two percent.
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So what can be done?
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Well, without even looking at the hard-hit oil, gas, mining and even agriculture sectors, could we begin with alternative cleaner energy sources to meet our electrical needs?
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Wouldn鈥檛 this make sense in a province where 19 per cent of the GHG emissions are a result of burning coal for electrical generation?
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We can鈥檛 have pump jack in every farmyard, but could we have a windmill or solar source that every farmer could use to generate his own power and perhaps even sell excess back to the Sask. Power grid?
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Surely, there are smarter people than me out there with better ideas.
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There are likely few people on the planet more resilient that Saskatchewan settlers who built their homes from the dirt and burned cow chips to heat them.
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If they are, they are likely First Nations people who survived this climate for millennia before.
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With our collective wisdom we can find innovative ways to find cleaner energy that produce jobs like building windmills at a time when building pipe is slowing down.
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It is a problem, but, yes there are innovative solutions.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
