Letters to the editor
Bombarded With Reassurances
R.P. Lowry, Victoria
Volume 28 Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: June 30, 2014
Editor:
We are being bombarded with reassurances that shipping crude oil/bitumen from the Alberta tarsands by pipeline and tankers to overseas markets is in our individual and national best interest. Is this true?
What are the real risks and potential hazards of rapid expansion of tanker traffic from the B.C. coast, a “lee” shore, in this era of increasingly violent storms? There are data to suggest that a major pipeline/tanker spill could be an environmental catastrophe.
How is anyone to make a decision, balancing up the potential risks and benefits to us as individuals and the nation? Thus, can anyone make an “informed decision” while scientists are being muzzled and genuine discussion of these issues is squelched? Where, therefore, is informed consent?
Editor:
We are being bombarded with reassurances that shipping crude oil/bitumen from the Alberta tarsands by pipeline and tankers to overseas markets is in our individual and national best interest. Is this true?
What are the real risks and potential hazards of rapid expansion of tanker traffic from the B.C. coast, a “lee” shore, in this era of increasingly violent storms? There are data to suggest that a major pipeline/tanker spill could be an environmental catastrophe.
How is anyone to make a decision, balancing up the potential risks and benefits to us as individuals and the nation? Thus, can anyone make an “informed decision” while scientists are being muzzled and genuine discussion of these issues is squelched? Where, therefore, is informed consent?
At present, we in B.C. are being bombarded by a glossy media blitz and it might seem that oil tycoons and/or government ministers on the trail of big money are leading us down the garden path.
Therefore, I suggest that the silent majority stand up to be counted and request careful analysis and discussion of the scientific data that might inform us of the real hazards. Meanwhile, let’s have a 10-year moratorium on implementation of oil pipeline and export plans while the real risks and benefits of large-scale oil exports from the “unspoiled” B.C. coast are examined. This unspoiled coast is a treasure that we should preserve forever.
R.P. Lowry, Victoria