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Thursday, June 12, 2008
Letters Editor, National Post
300 - 1450 Don Mills Road
Don Mills
Ontario, M3B 3R5
Re: Oilsands and nature
Dear Editor;
Claudia Cattaneo’s report on the oil sands attitude poll is very encouraging. It suggests that Canadians and Americans are waking up to the possibility environmental organizations are working against our interests with their campaign to shut down the industry.
Unfortunately, the Post’s Headlines “Trees are good but oil is better” and “Energy-hungry public turning its back on nature” just fuel the environmentalist position.
Nature has been successfully dealing with the oilsands deposits for millions of years. There is no fundamental reason that humans can not extract the oil without significant long term negative effects. Nature, particularly with a little human help, will be able to establish an attractive and useful environment once the oil is gone.
We need the energy from those oil sands and the Post would better serve its readers if it avoided inflammatory remarks which suggest we can’t have it without destroying the environment. Granted their will be short term environmental disruption, but in a mere one or two hundred years it will be resolved. This is a case where we can eat the icing on our cake and keep it too.
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast