Being a high school student in Canada and living here for my

Being a high school student in Canada and living here for my entire life, I've learned about Canada. I know that Canada has beautiful landscapes and a clean environment. What doesn't make Canada clean is its oil extraction, more specifically the plan to build a trans-mountain pipeline expansion from Albert to Vancouver. The best decision that will benefit Canadians is to not build the pipeline expansion. Building the pipeline will disturb our beautiful landscapes and wouldn't sustainable for the future. The pipeline being constructed would result in landscapes being damaged that the pipeline goes through, potential spills that can damage ecosystems, and how the oil will be used more as more will be exported.

I'm writing this because Canada should consider more about the future and invest in technologies that would benefit everyone even in the future.The oil is extracted by mining or in-situ. Mining oil means that companies will have to mine the ground which the oil is located.

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Since most of the Albert oils are located in forests, mass deforestation would have to be done to get the oil. The oil will then be used in other countries which will bring up ho2 emissions. Mining oil can consequently result in loss of habitats, oil spills, tailing ponds leaking into rivers/lakes and much more environmental impacts. Tailing ponds leaking into rivers/lakes will pollute communities that depend on the river/lake. It is important that we keep the water and landscape safe so animals and people wouldn't get impacted by the oil extraction.

The first issue of building the pipeline is how spills may affect the landscape the pipeline goes through. Spills can cause economic damage as it costs a lot to clean up oil. For instance, the Exxon Valdez oil spill costed 6.8 billion American dollars to clean up (Macleans). Oil spills that get into rivers can pollute communities that depend on the river and animals that live/depend on the water. Land oil spills can kill plants and land ecosystems. Oil spills will cause political impacts such as polluting foreign ecosystems.

Secondly, building the pipeline will damage the landscape that it goes through. Some parts of the pipeline will go through lands which are owned by other people. This might cause people to abandon their homes and move somewhere else. Communities that are next to the pipeline wouldn't be happy too as if a spilled happened, the community will be negatively impacted by it. The pipelines going through landscapes will damage ecosystems that depend on it. One example is how during the construction of the pipeline "fish habitat can be affected by soil washout from machinery and cause sedimentation into fish-bearing rivers and streams (bucksuzuk)." The cost of the pipeline will be expensive too. Just recently Kinder Morgan said that the price for the pipeline could go for 9.3 billion now. This is immense amounts of money spent on exporting oil. If a decision doesn't get finalized soon, the value of the pipeline will keep going up.

Lastly, with the new pipeline expansion, more oil will be exported which would cause more pollution as more oil will be used. Canada exporting oil will make Canada not look like an eco-friendly country. Canada exporting more oil will influence other countries too. Although exporting more oil into foreign countries such as China, Iran, and Russia will increase relations, the oil exported will be used up and more co2 will be released. Instead of exporting oil, Canada can export something else to increase relations. Even though more oil will be exported and shipped across the world, Canada oil prices might actually go up from $2.50 to $5.90 a barrel to pay for the expansion (CBC).

To conclude, the trans-mountain pipeline expansion shouldn't be built as it would not benefit Canadians and will increase the effect climate change. Instead of investing in non-renewable resources, Canada should instead invest in green energy as it will produce more jobs and be sustainable. If we don't change, we only have until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change (CNN). Considering how long it would take to finalize and build the pipeline, it wouldn't be that long until it hits 2030. In order to influence other countries to go green, Canada has to start investing in green energy. If Canada doesn't change now, why would Canada change later?