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The below article was published in The Conversation on Thursday 4 May 2023. Reproduced with permission from The Conversation. Reprinted in The Tyee 4 May 2023 as "Who’s Going to Pay to Clean Up the Oil and Gas Mess in Alberta?"   Alberta’s claim that it’s a responsible energy producer are increasingly ringing hollow. Efforts by oil and gas companies to restore old mines and wells so that the land around them is returned to its original form — known as reclamation — have been sorely lacking, and they’re failing to pay municipal property taxes. Premier Danielle Smith lobbied for oil and gas companies to have their royalty payments forgiven to compensate them for cleaning up dirty wells — something they were already legally obligated to do. Industry regulations are ineffective. We can help yo...

This Limerick comes courtesy of my colleague David Swann .... Enjoy ‘New Day's Lyric’ by Amanda Gorman May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend,  Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better.  Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren't ready for this,  We have been readied by it. Steadily we vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal,  Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps.  So let us not return to what was normal,  But reach toward what is next. What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agre...