Dear Editor,
You cannot turn on the television without seeing live video of oil streaming into the ocean and oil-soaked birds dying. We wring our hands and shake our heads in dismay.
At the same time, we tear around in our oversized vehicles and various fuel-gulping toys and do not see any connection. Drilling for oil is occurring in ever more remote and deeper areas than before to feed our demands. Canada has even deeper wells being developed off our east coast with even fewer safeguards, thanks to a federal government that still subsidizes the industry. The oil companies and our son of an Imperial Oil executive prime minister can hardly wait for that darned Arctic ice to melt in order to get at the possible oil reserves there. The Alberta tar sands are an environmental disaster that is killing northern Saskatchewan with acid precipitation. The easy way to get at oil is fast disappearing and we are going after the dirty and dangerous stuff at our peril.
If we do not wake up real soon and change our ways, we are in big trouble. An exhaustive study by the International Energy Agency says the world economy spends $550 billion in annual subsidies to the oil, natural gas and coal industries. Imagine if that money was redirected to renewable energies – no new money, just redirected. What a change for the better it would be! Governments around the world unfortunately seem to also be addicted to oil and oil money. In Canada, oil still gets federal money while the small subsidy to renewables was discontinued. In our province, the Saskatchewan Party has received $1,298,599 in political contributions from energy companies over the years. The corporate media is owned by a small group of wealthy people with special interests. Climate change is accelerating faster than the worst case predictions of IPCC reports. The Greenland ice cap is losing 200 cubic kilometers of ice annually.
What do you think? Time for a change in our view of the world and a change of governments?
Mike Bray
Indian Head, Sask.