After the Sands: Gordon Laxer’s book tour across the Maritimes

Gordon Laxer’s book tour across the Maritimes: Oct 24–28

Author’s presentations promise to bring rare insight & controversy to today’s debates on Canada’s transition to a low carbon future\

Gordon Laxer, author of the award-winning book After the Sands, will be on a speaking and book-signing tour through PEI, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick from October 24 – 28

Gordon Laxer’s After the Sands outlines a vision to transition Canada to a low-carbon society. Ralph Nader hails it as “a myth-destroying blockbuster book.”

Despite its oil abundance, Canada is woefully unprepared for the next global oil supply crisis. Canada imports 30 percent of its oil, yet—unlike twenty-seven of the other twenty-nine member countries in the International Energy Agency—has no strategic petroleum reserves to meet temporary shortages. Canadians use much more oil per capita than other sparsely populated, northern countries like Norway and Sweden.

After the Sands sets out a bold strategy using deep conservation and a Canada-first perspective. The goal: to ensure that lower-income Canadians get sufficient energy at affordable prices in a carbon-constrained future and prevent the rich from cornering reduced energy supplies.

“Is Prime Minister Trudeau taking bold action on climate change or blowing hot air? Trudeau promised big at the Paris climate talks last December that Canada would lead in keeping the world below a two degree Celsius global temperature rise. Yet instead of striding boldly forward, Ottawa took a baby step by placing a paltry $50 a tonne tax on carbon. That will raise gasoline prices a measly 11 cents a litre by 2022. That’s two cents a year more starting in 2018. Why would we expect an 11 cent boost over six years to do anything when pump prices 30 to 40 cents a litre higher in 2014 than today did not curb Canadians harmful carbon fuel use? The Trudeau government is artfully deceiving Canadians that it’s tackling one of the biggest crises of our time,” charged Gordon Laxer

“Why aren’t we having a debate in Atlantic Canada about the region supplying itself with its own oil instead of running a pipeline 4,600 kilometres from Alberta to New Brunswick,” asks Gordon Laxer. “Newfoundland has enough non-fracked, conventional oil to supply all east coast Canadians with the most secure oil of all –its own. Most Atlantic Canadians live on or near a coast. Why pipe oil from afar when tankers can ship all they need from Newfoundland’s oil fields? Tankers can be phased out as Atlantic Canadians’ oil use falls in the de-carbonizing transition the world is embarking on, whereas an oil pipeline would have to pump harmful Alberta bitumen at full volume for at least 30 years to pay off the costs of building the pipeline. How would this help wean us off carbon fuels?”

Tour Schedule

1. Charlottetown – Monday, October 24 – 7 p.m.

Murphy’s Community Centre, Room 207, 200 Richmond Street

2. Fredericton, N. B. – Tuesday, October 25 – 7 p.m.

Wilmot United Church Sanctuary, 473 King St. (At Carleton)

3. Saint John – Wednesday October 26 – 7 p.m.

Ganong Hall, University of New Brunswick Saint John, 100 Tucker Park Rd.

4. Halifax – Thursday October 27 – 7 p.m.

Ondaatje Theatre, Marion McCain Building, 6135 University Ave (Dalhousie    University)

5. Acadia University – Friday October 28 – 1 p.m.

BAC 142

6. Mahone Bay – Friday October 28 – 7 p.m.

Mahone Bay Centre, 45 School Street

Gordon Laxer, PhD, is the founding director and former head of Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. A political economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, Laxer is a prominent public intellectual.

To learn more about Gordon’s Maritime book tour visit www.gordonlaxer.com