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Thursday, July 03, 2008
Letters Editor, National Post
300 - 1450 Don Mills Road
Don Mills
Ontario, M3B 3R5
Re: “Sustaina-bull”
Dear Editor,
Peter Foster’s article on the useful(?) idiots who preach environmental doom, the wisdom of government and the danger of free markets in the name of the very flexible concept of sustainable development was needed. Unfortunately, and surely inadvertently, Peter promoted one of their cases for environmental doom with the following passage.
“….. since Shell’s oil sands are big, in the boreal forest, use a lot of water, and emit a substantial portion of Canada's anthropogenic greenhouse gases, then they are somehow unsustainable.”
The oil sands may be big but the fraction of boreal forest affected at one time is very little, the amount of water used is miniscule relative to water available and GHG emissions from their production are small relative to Canada’s total.
Not only that, once the oil is removed, the land will be freed up for other use, GHG emissions will cease, water will no longer be needed for extraction and both will be available to sustain the economy of future generations. The carbon dioxide emissions may even be a future benefit. Isn’t this picture the very essence of sustainable development?
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast