Dear Editor:
Why are we letting oil corporations rush back to business-as-usual in Fort McMurray following the wildfires that swept through that city in early May? Talk about stupid when most people have finally connected the dots between burning fossil fuels and more frequent climate disasters like the Fort Mac holocaust.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that 80 percent of all fossil fuels including – and especially – Alberta’s heavy, gooey bitumen must stay in the ground if our one-and-only livable planet is to avoid climate chaos. What sense does it make – except for short-term profit – to rebuild the old Fort Mac ‘as is’ when the petroleum industry’s days are numbered?
Instead of building massive pipelines to export this destructive stuff around the world, let’s use it as a bridge to build our 100% green, renewable energy economy here, which – like it or not – is the only way out of our deadly fossil fuel addiction. Imagine what could be created with the equivalent of $9 billion in insurance payouts to the wildfire evacuees, bolstered by a let’s-get-serious revenue neutral price on carbon right across Canada. A few of the benefits: a just transition to sustainable jobs for our 90,000 fellow Canadians forced to flee Fort Mac (and all other fossil fuel workers), a robust economy built on clean technologies, and – most important – a less dire climate future for our kids and grandkids.
Liz Armstrong