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LETTERS: Deteriorating environmental state ‘no surprise’

LETTERS: Federal government complicit in environmental degradation
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Editor:

We shouldn’t be surprised about our deteriorating environmental state. Under the guise of “balancing jobs and environment,” which actually means moving the goalposts to fit political expediency, the federal government daily allows thousands upon thousands of tonnes of US coal to be shipped to Asia through our ports.

This, when California, Oregon and Washington states have recognized that this garbage is burned and pumped back into the atmosphere returning to melt our Arctic ice and raise temperatures everywhere.

All for a very few jobs. Throw in other of the present federal government’s recent “balancing jobs and the environment” decisions like the super dirty cement plant in Gaspé approved after huge lobbying by Quebec’s two wealthiest families for their benefit.

And then there is the approval of huge increases in tanker traffic in the Strait of Georgia and the transport of dirty oil that will be burned to further degrade the atmosphere and inevitably foul our coastline, all demonstrating that we and our government are utterly complicit in this upcoming catastrophe for life on Earth.

Brian Tuomi, White Rock