This is part of the challenge for us, and I think this goes to Mr. Chastko as well; we always are looking at the bigger picture. All the benefits can be seen, but at what cost? Our job as legislators--as historians as well sometimes, I think--is to try to balance out the good versus the bad here.
It seems to me, from listening to the presentation we heard from our first guest, from Natural Resources Canada, that in some ways the improvements in technology are being exceeded by increases in production. In other words, the pollution is gaining on us despite any improvements we might make in energy intensity or pollution reduction.
So we are now stuck with the problem of, for example, 50 square kilometres of Alberta being covered by tailings ponds. We don't yet have a solution, and those tailings ponds are growing. As I understand it, 20% of the entire reserves are still going to be reclaimed using mining techniques. That's a large number, as we were told by one of our earlier witnesses.
To either of our guests, but perhaps Dr. Chastko, how do we as a society balance out the costs to society of poisoning ourselves--by air pollution, by increased GHG production, by what we're doing to water and to soil--versus the great gains that are clearly being made? What will be the judgment of history on all of that, Dr. Chastko?