Editor, The News:
Anyone who says “environmental politics are probably more potent in B.C. than in any other province” deserves to be nominated for the understatement of the year award.
I nominate journalist Nancy MacDonald, who makes that exact understatement in her excellent interview with B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell in the current Maclean’s magazine.
Environmental politics in B.C. have reached toxic levels with malicious claims and outright falsehoods being directed at various resource industries and the law-abiding companies who invest in this province and create jobs.
But as Premier Campbell says in the interview, green issues are shaping the politics of the future, regardless of the environmental politics of the present.
And there is not much point debating whether climate change is or isn’t happening, as Campbell says, because we can see that it’s happening in B.C. Our interior communities have been devastated by the pine beetle because our winters have become too warm, and the loss of pine forest is leading to many other problems like flooding and record breaking forest fires.
Leaders like Gordon Campbell and California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger are to be commended for recognizing the threat that climate change holds for the world and for taking action. They are also to be commended for recognizing that climate change has “nothing to do with borders or left-right politics.”
And if we are going to succeed in wrestling this serious issue to the ground, there is no room for toxic claims, self-serving falsehoods and the status quo environmental politics of the present.
Sandra Robinson
Maple Ridge
