Editor:
Re: Vitriolic view not welcome, Oct. 2 letters
The letter by Elise Burgert is all truth.
The current situation reminds me of a similar one during the war in Vietnam. Most adults had lost their brains somewhere! It took years of fierce demonstrations by young people to restore sanity to the world.
I urge today’s youth to step up the pressure! Time is running out!
Bill McConnell, South Surrey
•••
There is roughly a billion dollar industry funding climate change denial on an annual basis. I, for one, am happy to see youth out in large numbers advocating for change to try and save our planet.
Not long ago, advertising companies profited from the tobacco industry by pumping out propaganda slamming anti-tobacco scientists and medical professionals. This same game-plan is being deployed by the fossil fuel companies via advertising propaganda, and some politicians and journalists.
There were those who, a few decades ago, publicly denied the health risks of tobacco, a very addictive substance, and there are those who deny that pollution is impacting the world.
There are profits at risk for the fossil fuel industries as well as the shareholders on all the products and services that are linked.
One recent letter writer, Glen Gerow, suggested that the “academia does the bidding of the left.”
It is utter nonsense to suggest that anyone who pursues education and knowledge is politically left wing. I suppose, based on this theory, every invention and discovery was created by an intelligent radical left wing. Hence, we should all ‘believe’ that the world is indeed flat, the printing press was evil, and we should go back to the horse and buggy.
Prime Minister Harper tried to muzzle public sector scientists who were publishing scientific journals that didn’t fit with his denial agenda. “Either shut up or be fired,” was the message.
Youth will recognize ignorance from those who purport that our continued reliance on fossil fuels has no causal connection to the future demise of the planet, and they have every right to challenge it from paid journalists, politicians influenced by lobbyists, and advertising companies paid to promote ecocide.
It is their very future they are trying to save and not our present corrupt systems of profiting from greed at the expense of humanity’s existence.
John Mackintosh, Surrey