Dear editor,
In reply to Rick James letter (Record, Jan. 7) entitled What is really causing floods?, I want to congratulate Mr. James for bringing our attention to something vitally important to the community.
To hear from a writer like Mr. James who believes in his own perceptions instead of the lies we are persuaded to believe by government and logging corporations is a harbinger of hope. Political life has reached the point where many of us are numbed down and dumbed down to the point of no return. And in my opinion, there will be no return unless we listen to people like Rick James.
Yes, of course it’s primarily the clearcut logging above the Valley that leads to the huge inflows of water into the Comox Lake reservoir.
And please, TimberWest, don’t try to dither around by claiming you do retention logging. Retention logging consists of leaving a tree or two in the midst of a massive clearcut (which frequently blows down in the first good windstorm).
I personally am sick of the highjacking of our resources of B.C. by privatizing-mad governments and gutless Supreme Court judges who give out injunctions to every pillaging, polluting, privatizing logging or construction company that asks for one.
However, the disobeying of a court injunction hauls one before the same court which gave it out in the first place (judges protect each other’s orders, right or wrong), which means instead of being allowed to plead your case for the environment, the judge will declare you in contempt of the court and the environment is of no consequence to the court.
We have to recognize that the courts and the present Liberal government of British Columbia (and their apologists, i.e. Stephen Watson) will protect the rights of logging companies to cut forests on hills and mountainsides to the bone even though it will bring massive flooding in the future to the towns below.
Consider the flooding of Bella Coola last September and the massive clearcutting around and above the town. Ditto the B.C. towns and settlements of Port Hardy, Holberg, Kingcome Inlet, and Port Alice which were also terrorized by massive flooding; all were surrounded by clearcuts.
In the book Collapse by Jared Diamond (New York Times bestseller), Diamond details the total deforestation of Haiti as the reason Haiti is now a failed state and an occupied state (by U.S. personnel). There is nothing left on Haitian hillsides to catch the rains; their towns and cities are virtual mudholes. Can’t happen here?
It’s happening as we speak. What can stop it? Anger.
Enough anger to prompt citizens to think about peaceful civil disobedience, to learn about it, to acknowledge it as part and parcel of the evolution of the law and the Charter and an equitable society. Either we stand up, or stand down.
If we stand down, our children will inherit scrub grasses, mudholes, ill health and few jobs instead of forests and fish and reasonable economic stability. As a people, we have to make some serious decisions.
Our government officials including the courts are too incompetent or corrupt to make decisions for the greater good. It really is up to us.
Thank you, Mr. James.
Betty Krawczyk,
Cumberland
