CHARBONNEAU – Future generations will regard TMX as a curious monument

Some day, the TMX pipeline might be regarded as another mysterious monument, just like the pyramids. (Image: Mel Rothenburger)
THE TRANS MOUNTAIN PIPELINE may be redundant. If it remains empty, future generations will wonder why it was built.
It’s a distinct possibility that the TMX pipeline, currently being built a short walk from my house in Kamloops, is unnecessary. At least, not in the near future according to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Existing pipelines, and expansion of Enbridge’s Mainline and Line 3, will create “more than enough pipeline export capacity” through to 2040. By then, renewable energy sources will be in place.
I’ve often wondered why the Egyptian pyramids were built when they serve no practical purpose. Sure, they were a technical marvel but they seem a bit much for a Pharaoh’s tomb when a simple gravestone would suffice.
David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.
Love this forewarning. And it only imagines as far back as nearing the end of the Egyptian empire, the birth of Christianity or the Nazca Lines, all of which are historic drops in the bucket compared to the changes on this earth that must have taken place throughout the five preceding ice ages. What will happen before this Anthropocene Era ends? Will all our technological advances be eventually writ in a thin grey strata of petrified sediment for some self-conscious member of a new species to ponder? I wonder what fossilized artifacts of our era will be studied – – – or even collected?