The Editor,
Re. Ingrid Rice editorial cartoon, The Tri-City News, Feb. 9.
Ingrid Rice’s cartoon showed why the Trans Mountain pipeline must not be expanded. It showed a barrel of B.C. wine beside a drum of Alberta bitumen.
Wine produced from grapes is a renewable resource that may be produced for millennia (as practised in Greece and Italy). On the other hand, bitumen is a non-renewable resource. If the pipeline is expanded then tar sands extraction and processing will grow to fill the pipeline. This mining of fossil energy may continue for a few decades until the deposit is exhausted — then the pipeline will run dry.
In the meantime, increasing tar sands processing will spew more and more greenhouse gases into a warming atmosphere. The result will be more wildfires, intense heat waves and droughts, invasive species and diseases, and permanent population displacement from ocean flooding.
Ms. Rice’s insightful cartoon explains exactly why the federal and provincial governments must put the interests of renewable, sustainable resources ahead of the interests of the non-renewable, outdated industries.
D.B. Wilson, Port Moody
••••••••
‘Act of terrorism’
The Editor,
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s incendiary speech calling for Alberta residents to boycott all B.C. wines is an act of terrorism.
She accused B.C. of “holding Alberta families hostage” after the B.C.’s minister of environment ask for proper scientific study on the shipment of bitumen through the proposed pipeline route.
If this request really is unconstitutional, she can challenge it in court. Hurting innocent wine makers who have nothing to do with the issue is not fair. She should be ashamed of herself.
Sammy Liang, Coquitlam
