Pipeline phobia

As someone who grew up in a rural, seemingly narrow-minded part of England, I've always thought it good to think big. Which is why, I suppose, I was happy to embrace the size of North America.
Over the years, however, I learned to be wary of what modern marketers call “big ideas” ... you know, the fine-sounding schemes dreamed up as a foundational guide for the future of the world.
Take “eugenics”, the idea that the human race could be “improved” through selective breeding. It was part of the mainstream science of its day. And it helped lead to Nazism and the slaughter of millions.
Other big ideas, parroted throughout history, include the notion that the end of the world is just around the corner. It’s an idea that has helped fuel the feverish, enormously costly push to somehow slow climate change.
The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, too, is another big idea that has legs ... at least until it doesn't.
Politicians, of course, like these superficially appealing concepts because they're big vote-getters. They make candidates for public office seem as if they have passion and depth.
But it all raises a big question: Why have so many North Americans become so hostile towards pipelines? And why are these mostly hidden, utilitarian entities considered such bad news?
Well, let's be frank, the heated opposition to pipelines in an oil-producing country like Canada appears to stem more from emotion than reason.
Our country clearly needs oil for its own energy consumption and for export. And having buried, seamless, expertly-welded metal tubes transporting it across a vast, sparsely populated land is much safer and less intrusive than using tanker truck or rail.
Last month, reps for a bevy of environmental and "civil society" organizations gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, holding banners with the uncompromising message: “No to pipelines, not here or anywhere.”
Not anywhere? Isn't that a bit extreme? I mean, we use pipelines to transport a lot of things besides crude and refined oil. They include everything from water and sewage to milk and beer.
This week, after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced government approval for a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, fired-up opponents vowed to hold a series of protests against the plan.
Their aversion seems grounded in the big idea that industrialization is always bad – when, in fact, it's fostered many of the societal advances the "progressive" activists have been fighting for.
So, to suggest pipelines are the villains in all this is, well, a little far-fetched. In fact, it's downright phobic.