A Story with Two Ends. . .Our Story
Burns Lake District News
Published: June 02, 2009Here is a story that concerns both you and me. It is the story of our
future. And it goes like this:
The drug is addictive. Abundant. Cheap. Our craving grows, addiction
spreads. Speculators, giddy from profit, become as addicted to their greed
as addicts to the drug. Then supplies dwindle. All hell breaks loose.
Especially when the drug is oil. Dirty oil.
In Burns Lake last week, Ian McAllister and Andrew Nikiforuk, both
nationally recognized, award-winning journalists, showcased the true cost of
North America's addiction to oil. If most tragedies finish with a descent
into hell, this story starts with the greatest environmental catastrophe
ever, the unregulated development of the Alberta tar sands. Unless we act
now that tragedy will define our future.
Addiction, political short-sightedness, corporate greed. NAFTA guarantees
the US unlimited access to Canada's oil. The cost? Destruction of boreal
forest, poisoned groundwater, decimated wildlife, threatened livelihoods,
escalating cases of rare and deadly human cancers. And it gets worse.
Enbridge proposes two pipelines slashed through a 1000-kilometer-long
clearcut in the heart of the salmon watershed and the Great Bear Rainforest.
Yearly, about 225 supertankers, each carrying two million barrels of dirty
oil, will threaten our fragile coastline. Pipelines spill. Tankers spill.
Toxic spills. In exchange, Enbridge offers the miserly promise of 45
permanent jobs, a new recreation centre. Is that all our children are
worth?
Thirty-three communities in the Northwest Territories are calling to halt
further tar sands development. Many groups, like the Wet'suwet'en and
Nadleh, fighting to protect the lives of Fort Chipewyans, are saying NO to
Enbridge. Let's follow their lead. Let's get informed, get involved. Call
the Pembina Institute: (250) 847-3143. Come to the “All Nations Energy
Summit”, June 6 at the Moricetown Multiplex: (250) 847-3630 or (250)
614-3317.
Remember. This is our story. We can choose how it ends. The only way
man-made tragedy can prevail is when good people do nothing. Now is the time
to act. We must reclaim our future.
Signed:
Irene Allison
Alois Verlinden
Frank Lehman
Gordon Lehman