We hear you, Alberta. We get it. Unemployment is up. Earnings are down.

You feel threatened. You feel your children’s future is threatened.

We get it. We’ve been there, too. We all have. We all are, right now.

Here’s the thing: as a civilization, we cannot afford to keep doing things the way we have been. Not if we want to keep our civilization in something resembling its current form.

While oil and gas has made some people very rich, and provided many more people with a good living, we all knew that it would have to end some day. At some point, we have to stop burning oil.

At one time, we thought that would happen when the oil ran out. (Remember those days, when Alberta saved a portion of the money it made in what was called the Heritage Fund? And then you decided to blow it all. But that’s another story.)

But now we realize that we have to stop burning fossil fuels while there are still fossil fuels in the ground — because the side-effects are killing us.

It’s like smoking: some enjoy it, but the side effects are killing us. So even though there are people whose living depended on tobacco farming or processing or cigarette manufacturing and distribution, we turned away from it. Sure, there are still smokers out there, but the numbers are a fraction of what they used to be.

We have moved on.

And that’s what’s happening with oil and gas right now. Yes, the Alberta industry has cleaned up a lot. Your emissions from producing oil and gas may have come down. That part may be on track to net zero.

But that argument is disingenuous. Production of oil and gas may have net zero carbon emissions, but not the consumption of the product. That cannot be net zero, because of chemistry. Perfectly efficient combustion of a hydrocarbon produces water and carbon dioxide. And less-than-perfect combustion produces a number of nasty things, like carbon monoxide, too.

We have burned so much gasoline, oil, coal and other fossil fuels over the past 200 years, we have put ourselves in grave peril.

Let’s not quibble about it. We all know it’s true. The world has already warmed, and it’s continuing to get warmer, as a result of our use of fossil fuels. You know it. Arguing about it just makes you look like you’re even more afraid.

And no, we don’t hate you. In fact, we—the whole rational world, that is—are offering you an alternative.

A way out.

We are moving on, and we want you to join us.

It seems to me that the major economic problem Alberta is facing is the classic one of putting all of your eggs into one basket. Oil and gas is a notoriously boom-and-bust industry. And Alberta has been through several busts, not all of them because of eastern Canada.

The solution? Diversification. And there’s a huge opportunity seemingly custom-made for Alberta: renewable energy.

Imagine that, rather than investing billions in a pipeline that will never make money, Alberta invested in developing geothermal, solar and wind energy. Renewable energy installations now produce electricity cheaper than any other form of generation. It thus earns a better return than oil and gas.

Alberta gets more days of sunshine than any other province in Canada. And you are famous for winds, too. Developing the renewable energy industry could employ all the workers laid off from the oil and gas sector. And in many cases, the jobs require more training and education, and therefore pay better. Plus, they’re cleaner and thus healthier than many O&G jobs. And there’s a future in them. Finally, they won’t poison the environment.

It’ll take time and money.

Already, the O&G sector in Alberta cannot make money without subsidies from the rest of the country. No one is telling anyone to completely drop fossil fuels immediately.

And no one is saying that you should abandon the carbon reduction or sequestration development. Those are good.

Keep exporting technology around the world. We also support that.

It will take time. It will take work.

We are running out of time. By “we,” I mean all of us. The whole world. We have less than 11 years to reduce carbon emissions worldwide, to avoid raising average global temperatures to a point where the oceans will rise catastrophically.

The world has already warmed because of our activity. Yes, you know it.

There’s really no point in arguing that the world is not warming, nor whether it’s human-caused. The vast majority of people have accepted that, and change is coming.

Change is coming to Alberta’s energy sector.

It’s up to you to decide whether that’s a threat or an opportunity.