Peak oil prophets a little peeved

            Peak oil enthusiasts and other doomsday prophets (who me?) may have to take a 20-year hiatus from their ‘End is Near’ rants.

            North America is apparently poised to become a net exporter of oil by 2030.  And the United States is poised to overtake Saudi Arabia in oil production by 2020.  Say what??  What seemed unfathomable only five years ago will come to fruition in a few years, according to the International Energy Agency.   Fast flowing light crude oil is being pumped out of previously unreachable reserves throughout the American Midwest.

            All this goes to show that technology can dramatically change economies and world trends in a very short time period.  China will continue to drive growth in oil demand, but greater fuel efficiency standards in North America and Europe will help to offset it.  Add in the extra supply, and we’re laughing for the next 20 years!

            The United States, at least, will certainly be better off.  But Canada has put all its eggs in one energy-rich basket.  We’ve weathered the recession better than others in large part because we had big oil to fall back on.  While Ontario struggled, western Canada flourished thanks to the oil sands and new oil finds in Saskatchewan.  Both sides could be struggling soon.

If oil drops below $50 a barrel, oil sands lose their profitability, and everyone will go back home to Newfoundland.

It will also temper growth in Saskatchewan.  The province has become more and more dependent upon its resources for revenue, with its budgets and spending growing by leaps and bounds since the resource boom began in 2005.  A return to the days of $30 a barrel oil would be disastrous for the government and the economy.

            Good times may not be here to stay.

            Only a couple years ago analysts were suggesting the commodity boom would last forevermore until the last drop of oil was sucked out of the earth.  Energy-producing countries therefore had nothing to worry about.  While commodities may never be as cheap as they once were, the next decade could prove to be a tough one for Canada if our southern neighbour becomes the next Saudi Arabia.

            It may be tough for resource-rich regions, but great for the rest of the world.  Not only may energy become cheaper, but so will food.  Cheap energy benefits the poor, and can move many millions out of poverty.  Cheaper energy will also (hopefully) limit the conflicts in oil-rich regions of the world. 

            Let us hope we don’t squander this opportunity.  If it indeed comes to pass that we can fill up a tank at 53 cents a litre again (might be a bit too optimistic here), let’s continue down the path of energy efficiency and conservation, as if peak oil is around the corner. This is a golden opportunity to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels that could have been realized decades ago.

            But who am I kidding?  Human nature being as it is, we’re likely to guzzle the cheap energy like there’s no tomorrow.

            That is, if there’s a tomorrow.... (cue doomsday music)

The real meaning of Halloween

            This post is a little after the fact, but I felt inspired…

We tend to forget the true meaning of Halloween as we grow older.  My five-year-old reminded me again this year what it’s really all about.

It’s not about the costumes.  At her age, there’s no competition among peers to see who has the best costume.  Just slap on a mask and go! 

            It’s not about the thrill of being scared.  After visiting a Halloween costume store last year with our daughter, we quickly learned after a few sleepless nights that this will never happen again.

            It’s not about the Halloween school events – the bobbing for apples (do people still do that?!), the best-costume competitions, and the much underappreciated haunted classroom tour.

            No, Halloween isn’t about the thrill of being scared, dressing up in a costume, or even having a half-day off at school.  What is it all about?  It’s about the loot.  Everything else is all fun and good, but it all comes down to the night’s candy haul.  There is only one day of the year when complete strangers will open up their homes to kids and load heaps of candy into their greedy little hands.  All they have to say is “trick-or-treat.”  That’s Halloween.

My child and her loot... soon to be locked away!

            I got to re-live that again this year, as I took my daughter around our neighbourhood.  West Regina at 8:00 pm on October 31 – for me, a farm boy, this is the big leagues.  It’s at this point in the night when homeowners start to literally shovel the candy out onto their doorsteps.  In a neighbourhood that typically doesn’t have a lot of trick-or-treaters, it’s a bonanza.  We’re talking wads of candy.  And my daughter knew it.  She couldn’t get enough of it.  Even though, in her little subconscious, she knew her stringent parents would lock most of that candy away soon after, she wanted more.  We had only to hit ten houses before her candy pail was ready for a dump and re-load.  Five more houses and she would have enough candy for herself (and her parents) for the rest of the year.

This is much different than when I grew up.  When I was a kid, we had to work hard for our loot. There were no handfuls of candy plopped into our bags.  You had to build your cache one Tootsie Roll at a time.  If you happened to get a bag of chips, you had hit the jackpot.  There were no bags of candy and toys.  This was Halloween, for goodness sake, not Christmas!  We walked through blizzards, through five-foot snow banks, through -30 degree wind chills.  The fake blood painted on our faces would turn into real blood, painfully pealing the skin off our tender cheeks.  But we would move onward, visiting every single house in Laird, in hopes of an even greater haul than last year.

            We live in different times, but the quest is still the same – to fill that pillow case full of tooth-decaying sugary goods faster than ever before.

            That’s what Halloween is all about.

Shower heads lead to toilets lead to...

The innards of a bathroom not up to code

           All we wanted was a new shower head.  Didn’t really need much else.  But if we were to install a hand-held super deluxe shower head, we might as well replace the mould-filled shower diverter trim (you know, the thing that turns the water from cold to hot).  It had mould in it since we bought the house.  But it was contained in the crystal knob, you see.  Not dangerous at all.  Like pre-2002 Iraq, it was contained.  Just don’t bust it open, lest you release the weapons of mass destruction.

            So we decide to change the shower head and diverter trim (whatever you call it!)   But we're informed, if we do that, we’ll need a new tub surround.  We could get a cheap surround installed.  Or we could check out a place like Bath Fitter.  Hmmm... their estimate comes to $2500.  No tax, but no thanks.

            Enter my handy neighbour.  I inadvertently notice he has a fancy looking marble tiled bathroom that he has done himself.  And he’s looking for work... for $25 per hour.  In Saskatchewan, if you can get a contractor for $25 per hour, you better be sure the guy is for real.  He looked okay to us.

            We decide right then and there to forget the surround – decide to go with something fancier like ceramic tile.  Might as well take the walls out, too, advises my neighbour, in case there’s mould.... uncontained mould.  We agreed.  There’s a little patch behind the surround that I douse with bleach.  “That’ll do,” says my neighbour, as I madly scrub the little green specks to oblivion.

Our super duper shower head, and more...

            The plumber came by to do the pipes.  He shows us what was wrong with the initial hook-up behind the wall.  “It’s not up to code,” he tells us.  It gives us a nice feeling inside that we’re now “up to code.” 

            Then he notices our toilet.  “Hmmm,” he says, looking at the serial number.  “This may be one of those toilets.”

            “One of what toilets?” I ask, knowing this isn’t leading anywhere good. 

“Oh, one of those that Crane made in the 1980s to save money – their tanks are faulty.  Millions of dollars in litigation over it in the U.S.  I won’t re-install this toilet – I just can’t knowing the risk.”

            While grateful that my plumber has a conscience, I’m not thrilled about spending an additional $300 on a toilet.  Until I sit on it.  It’s heavenly.  Sitting at 16.5 inches, elongated bowl, water-saving but extra power flush (apparently can flush down 100 golf balls) – this toilet makes you want to go to the bathroom.  (My wife doesn’t quite understand the thrill.  She likes the shower head better.)

            So we got the new toilet, new tiles around the bathtub, and most importantly, a new shower head. 

            But what about the floor?  That old linoleum has got to go.  We tile the floor, too.

The toilet that makes you want to go

            Next up?  The medicine cabinet – my wife never liked it.  Might as well buy the best and biggest medicine cabinet Lowe’s has to offer.  Problem is, the lights above it don’t really match anymore.  New lights – hey, I can install those!  Great, saved some cash!

            Finally, the countertop.  Might as well change that, too.  Thank goodness for ready-made countertops.  Fits perfect, after a little rejigging.  Put in a new backsplash, change the tap to match the bathtub fixtures, repaint the whole room, and we’re done.

            I now understand renovation inflation. 

            After about 30 trips to Lowe’s and three sleepless nights about how high I wanted the shower head, we got what we wanted.

            My wife got a new shower head.  And I got a new toilet.

Obama, Romney look to captain Titanic

          As the American election looms, there is one thing that is certain – American elections are great entertainment.

          Not to say that the last Canadian election didn’t have entertainment value.  The rise of the NDP, the surprising Conservative majority, and the decimation of the Liberals was all very amusing.

          But nothing compares to the two-horse race that takes place every four years in the United States.  Where candidates spend millions and millions of dollars over what would equate to 36 election periods in Canada (2 years versus six weeks!)  Where a candidate’s facial expression in a debate is even more important than what the other candidate is saying.  And where candidates can talk on end for months without addressing any real issues.

          This election is about the economy, like it usually is.  Except in 2004, when it was about Iraq – back when Americans could be led easily into unnecessary wars.  Not anymore.  It’s all about America again.

          For all of Obama’s faults, he didn’t do badly with the cards that were dealt him.  He inherited the worst recession in nearly a hundred years and two incredibly costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He then went on to pass a momentous healthcare bill, one that would address many of the shortcomings of a for-profit healthcare system. While it gets little attention this election, it's one of the greatest acheivements of a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson introduced Medicare for seniors.  It's no wonder Republicans became upset.  

Republicans, in turn, played upon the fear of average Americans, who worried about being subjected to death panels - you know, like the kind we have in socialist Canada.  Thankfully for the GOP, fear is alive and well in the American psyche.

          Americans know they are no longer on top of the world economically.  The average working salary has been hit hard over the last five years.  Many auto workers, who could at one time earn a respectable wage with respectable pensions, are now divided into tiers – those who were hired before 2007 and those who were hired after.  Those who were hired after receive about 2/3 the wage as those hired before.

          These are some of the ill-effects of globalization and the financial collapse.  Obama did his best to combat the ill-effects with an auto bail-out, while Romney, who made his money off of failing firms, probably felt it would have been better to let the economy do what it does. 

There is something to be said for both approaches, but much like Hurricane Sandy, an unregulated market is an unwieldy and unpredictable entity.  It can ruin lives.

          There is an unspoken mantra in the US suggesting that if you fail, you deserve to fail.  Build too close to the coast, you deserve to get flooded, at least once every one hundred years.  Get sick without adequate insurance, you deserve the treatment you receive.

          Of course Republicans would never say this outright, lest they lose most of the middle class vote.  They will say they fight for the middle class, while continuing to bless the rich with tax cuts, and continuing to cut the programs that the neediest are dependent upon.

           But I’m letting my own personal bias show through in this otherwise objective rant (yah right!)

          In the face of economic hardship, political gridlock, and ballooning government debt, the United States is sure to provide even more spills and thrills in the upcoming months and years, whoever wins this election.

          Just as the sinking of the Titanic provided endless entertainment, America’s present-day trials and tribulations will continue to feed the news outlets of the world (not to suggest America is in any way going the way of the Titanic, but perhaps is veering a little too close to the icebergs).  Whatever happens, everyone will watch.

And America will continue to enjoy the spotlight.