Yeah, great point. I like this report showing that rapidly decarbonizing will create 25 million jobs, save the average American household $2000 per year, and improve the quality of life of everyone:

"How to create 25 million jobs by decarbonizing the economy" - https://www.fastcompany.com/90533448/how-to-create-25-millio...

That is like saying we can create 25 million jobs by starting a land war in Asia. I mean they directly compared it to WWII mobilization in the article.

Yeah exactly. That is the level of commitment needed to stay below 2 degrees of warming. The authors of that report worked backward from the goal of staying below 2 degrees and said, "what needs to happen in what timeframe to make that happen?" They found that if we started decades ago we wouldn't need a WWII-level of effort but since we waited so long we now have to move incredibly fast to electrify everything.

But the good news is that we can move that fast! We now know exactly what needs to happen (electrify everything) and in what timeframe (2035) to stay below 2 degrees and doing that will not only solve climate change but also create jobs, save us money, make us healthier, and improve our quality of life.

I just mean that it's a disingenuous way to say you're "creating jobs". Any mass government investment will create demand for labor, whether it's a massive investment in renewables, or in oil exploration, or in waging war, or anything else. It's not specific to green energy

Note that many dismiss climate goals because of "costing jobs". Like, "they will shut down our coal plant and hundreds will lose their job". So in that regard it's useful to point out that no, it will most likely be a net positive.

"Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it's jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels. [Reply to the government bureaucrat of one Asian country who told him that, reason why there were workers with shovels instead of modern tractors and earth movers at a worksite of a new canal, was that: "You don't understand. This is a jobs program."]" -- Milton Friedman (probably apocryphal)

Slightly similar, akon brought solar panels in a few african countries, and let the local people setup and install the mini grids (most probably under supervision from other people I didn't read about that). so now people got jobs, skills and light.

Canadian oil workers who make $120k fresh out of high school with no education are never going to be satisfied with training for their new $70k clean energy jobs. The problem is good jobs, not just jobs. How bad does climate change have to be before the lost wages and income decline is worth it? That’s the real question that nobody ever wants to talk about.

Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't understand why those workers can't still make the same $120k out of college no education building solar farms in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the winds WHIP across the arctic. Maybe I'm ignorant but it's all engineering, you're working on or build an oil rig or you're working on or building an offshore wind turbine, to me it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to think those same jobs could be transitioned over. Sure, what's the incentive for the private sector? Very little. However Canada doesn't have to take such an American view of capitalism, and we often haven't in our history. So it would require either regulation or forcing the issues through crown corporations. Is that not worth it? Personally I'd be missavily in favour of using a crown corporation to shift things faster.

Canadian engineers don’t make very much (60-120k range is typical) and that’s with a 4 year degree. Neither do technicians, repair people, scientists etc. $120k is just what 18 year olds make doing labour at the very beginning of their career. So the idea that replacing these jobs will ever be politically popular makes no sense to me at all. These people aren’t stupid and they know exactly what they stand to lose if Alberta transfers to renewables. I think they would love to build solar farms if it paid just as well though.

> Canada doesn't have to take such an American view of capitalism, and we often haven't in our history.

Canadian identity is a lot weaker in the west. I don’t think anyone really cares how “central” Canadians feel.

> all I hear in Canada is "oh the job, oh the job, what will happen to the jobs...???"

That's your corporate control of mainstream media, I would think.

And not only is there lots of work in renewable energy, but we've just gone through a year in which many large economies simply "bankrolled" a large unemployed fraction of the population, and the sky didn't fall: Prices didn't shoot up, no runs on banks, nothing like that. So the Canadian state, had it so wished, could back the transition with some money-printing if push came to shove. ... if it were so inclined.

The only mainstream media I consume is occasionally CBC. The sentiment I hear is from high school friends in Northwestern Ontario and folks I know out in Alberta and BC. In my personal opinion, we already have lots of crown corps in Canada, using them to put solar farms in Nunavut and offshore wind generation on the East and West coasts are just fine by me, faster we transition that way the better as far as I'm concerned.

Because Canada has a massive Oil sector, Scotland doesn't so much - and with a tinge of hypocrisy they want a bigger share of the revenue proceeds from North Sea Oil.

Canada's economic influence in the world is fairly strongly tied to Oil to the point where over the last 30 years it's correlated with the buying power of the dollar, and certainly the economic veracity of most Alberta.

It also fundamentally alters the surplus/deficit scenario - it's a 'major component' (though not nearly like Norway).

iPhones and many foreign cars in Canada are about 25% more expensive than they were a few years ago for example.

Environmental issues aside, there is a lot of downside - it's not just like all that industry can be shifted from one part of the economy to the other.

I thought Scotland DID have a large oil sector.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Scotland%27s_oil

You can argue whether it is Scotland's or the UK's but I live in the US and it is up to Scotland and the UK to sort out independence and their place in the EU.

They did, but according to their stats Scotland has 100K people 'dependent' on the sector, Alberta alone has 400K. Alberta is 4.5M pop. Scotland is 5.5M.

Alberta will unfortunately not be able to turn those Oilsands dredgers into windmills.

The windmills will probably be made and installed by totally unrelated entities.

If I were the King of Alberta I would play all my cards on some kind of carbon capture tech because it's not entirely infeasible. Maybe not for cars, but for installed engines and there will be plenty of demand for fuel if it can be used without CO2 emissions especially.

Yes, in fact the 'jobs split' between Scotland and England is probably more in Scotland's favor than any putative split of the oilfields after Scottish independence would be.

There is a concentration of oil infrastructure in Scotland and oilfields which would be in English territorial waters are serviced from Scotland.

> Environmental issues aside, there is a lot of downside - it's not just like all that industry can be shifted from one part of the economy to the other.

Yep. But the planning for it has to be done, because this change is visible on the horizon. If it isn't planned for, the shift will be forced, happen rapidly, and most of the ill effects will hit those least able to handle them. (I mean, it probably won't be, or at least not even close to the level it needs to be, and only thing most people can do is vote...)

I'm from the north of England, and the economy of the region has, as long as I've been alive, been depressed. Heavy manufacturing leaving the area (leaving the UK...): that's a major cause. But coal mining used to be central -- it was dying for a long time but it was really put to the sword in the 1980s. It was inevitable that it had to happen, just as I think this is, but the way it happened devastated the region -- and that's translated into several decades of damage, and has had hugely detrimental effects, particularly social. The idea was that retraining would happen, the economy would be shifted, but they were mostly empty promises (why do people of a certain age hate Thatcher with every iota of their beings? Well...).

Most of my family are from or live in the north of Scotland, and it's gone from the majority of them being employed in oil industry or oil industry-adjacent jobs to...not in the last 10-15 years. It's biting hard there (though there are jobs in renewables: not enough, but much better than situation was in NE England)

I completely agree with everything you're saying, and I also agree it's not easy to switch the components of the economy out willy nilly (oil for solar or wind farms, for example) - but I do believe if we don't make a concerted effort to finish a shift of phasing out our reliance on oil and its use as our international leverage, we're going to be in a world of trouble in 40 or so years.