On Oct. 4, Prince George city council discussed the Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance's request that Mayor Dan Rogers step down from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Alliance. His membership on this alliance demonstrates that he is in support of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. The motion for Rogers to step down was defeated.
As a citizen of this city I am concerned by council's near unanimous vote against the request from Sea to Sands. Many reasons were given and I concede that some of council's comments are indeed valid.
One defence of Rogers' support for the Northern Gateway Pipeline because we all use fossil fuels is fallacious. During discussion of this matter, councillor Bassermann noted that we all rely on fossil fuels. Like Bassermann, I use fossil fuels everyday of my life. However, unlike him, I am committed to advancing an energy future that does not put the lives of millions of people of risk in the future. If council would do its homework, it would realize that renewable energy can and does work at providing a viable source of energy for a modern society, ensuring prosperity for future generations.
Hans Schnellhuber, one of the world's top climate scientists, estimated that with current projection on climate change impacts, the world's population would be cut to less than one billion. Expansion of dirty oil production in the Alberta oilsands only makes this worse.
Furthermore, the Gateway Pipeline directs needed investment away from renewable energy and into something that must be phased out, oil.
Yes, councillor Basserman, I believe in practical solutions, but expanding fossil fuel production without capturing the carbon at the stack is, for all intensive purposes, a suicide pact with the future. How practical is that?
Thomas Cheney
Prince George
