Cycling in Waterloo Region

[tomh009]

 I'd argue one of the things that would need to be done to change the oil sands *is* change our transportation patterns.  But that's not really something I can adequately back up with evidence, it's more of an opinion.

It stands to reason that using fewer fossil fuel-burning vehicles will reduce the demand for fossil fuels. I'm sure there's plenty of evidence for that.

But given that our fossil fuel consumption is 0.0001% of the global total (or something like that), reducing gasoline consumption in Waterloo Region really won't have any perceptible impact on the demand for oil sands-sourced oil.  We need to reduce transportation patterns globally (or at least continentally) to have an impact on a specific oil-producing region.

Regulation, on the other hand, can effectively (and in parallel) reduce the environmental impact of the oil sands.