Oppose pipeline

Dear editor:
TransCanada’s promotions sing the praises of Energy East and oil, creating jobs and prosperity.
The sugary words and smiling faces hide the costs. Energy East will permit a doubling of oil production in the tar sands by 2020.
We must oppose this massive increase. Existing pipelines can do the work to meet the needs of Canadians. Expansion guarantees that Canada will never meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and that we will continue to destroy the natural world—and our ability to survive.
Canada does not need the oil which Energy East will carry. All of the increase will be exported.
A spider’s web of railways, pipelines, and ships and barges transport Canada’s oil across North America and out of the country—most to the United States, some (and soon more) to Europe, with projections of large shipments to Asia in the future.
Though Mr. Rickford’s Natural Resources Department recognizes the risks of a warming climate and extreme weather events (“Canada in a Changing Climate”), neither he nor the Harper government is serious about helping Canadians to reduce energy use or convert to solar, wind, biomass, or thermal (and let us not forget hydro-electricity).
Mr. Harper says that Canada will follow the U.S. Recently at a United Nations’ climate change summit, President Obama recognized the threat climate change poses to the world. He earlier had announced measures which will result in the closure of coal-fired plants in the U.S.
The leader of our largest customer for gas and oil has spoken and acted.
The Government of Ontario also has acted by closing coal-fired plants. Conservatives Preston Manning and Danielle Smith, leader of Alberta’s Wildrose Party, also understand our need to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Harper has neither spoken nor acted.
How can Canadians be proud of a government which leads by following and then refuses to follow? Energy East is not just TransCanada’s project; it is Mr. Harper’s and Mr. Rickford’s. Without their support, Energy East would remain an idea on a drawing board.
Harper says a carbon tax or cap and trade will cost the economy money; but how much are a warming climate and extreme weather events costing us?
And what about acidification of the oceans as they absorb carbon from the atmosphere? At what point will the fish populations decrease or vanish and coral reefs disintegrate?
Consider, also, the destruction of the natural environment in aboriginal territories caused by the oilsands.
An environmental review, sponsored by the federal and Alberta governments on the Jack Pine tar sands mine, describes that the effects of tearing up the land to find oil on wetlands, habitat for birds and animals, and the harvesting areas of aboriginal peoples as “irreversible.”
If we were digging up vast patches of land around Rainy Lake or Lake of the Woods, making it so that nothing would grow and the homes of birds and animals were destroyed (forever), would anyone think that to be a good thing?
We cannot stop the tar sands; but we can slow things down. We can stop building new pipelines; we can stop increasing production.
TransCanada hides these realities. It also hides the fact that “green” energy and insulating our homes will create many, many more jobs than a pipeline.
(Signed),
Peter Kirby
Kenora, Ont.