It is estimated that Alberta will have at least $50 billion in costs to try to deal with the horrific toxic mess left by tar sands mining; there isn’t even a plan to deal with nuclear waste; and the oil and gas companies are allowed to put up a small fraction of the actual costs of plugging their wells, prioritize drilling as long as it’s profitable, then declare bankruptcy and leave us to clean up the mess, or suffer the pollution for decades (millennia in the case of nuclear waste).

Why don’t the regulatory agencies make them set aside enough funds for cleanup before allowing permits? I’ll tell you why–because if they had to pay the full costs, none of this would be profitable, and politicians want the jobs, and the kickbacks, and the prosperity founded on fossil fuels.

The economy can’t actually afford to continue–this is essentially kicking the can down the road, postponing the reckoning, leaving our children to deal with the pollution, the toxic sites, the ravaged climate and ecosystems…without much if any electricity, transportation beyond horses, without a modern economy. Which likely means most of these sites will never be cleaned up–yet new ones are still being permitted, and none of these politicians is even talking about demanding cleanup costs be set aside.

We are robbing our children, ever more brutally.