With all of the marches and speeches, I’ve been thinking more about climate change and question how you can get from where we are now to where people want us to be so suddenly?
I think we can always do better in reducing emissions. No question. However, expectations need to come with reality. You can’t just flip the switch to get where we want.
I’m not discrediting people who display such passion for the environment, but at the end of the day, we all need to be employed, have opportunities and heat our homes in winter. People’s lives have changed substantially here in Alberta the past few years with what’s going on in the oil and energy industries.
You have to consider the cost and how quickly people expect you to get it done. A lot of golf courses are trying to get by with what they have now and all of a sudden, people want to hammer them with a huge cost to change over from something that has worked for them for years.
You’re not just talking the purchase of new equipment. The maintenance and upkeep changes, as well, and you need new buildings in which to store them, so it affects your entire infrastructure.
Do we need to do better? Absolutely. However, expectations of how suddenly we change our way of doing business needs to be tempered with reality.