Younger generation of voters gives hope to the planet
By Letter to the Editor on August 4, 2021.
Editor:
Clearly there has been discouragingly insufficient political courage and will to properly act upon the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming and climate change. ‘
Liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ (etcetera) are overly preoccupied with vociferously criticizing one another for their politics and beliefs thus diverting attention away from the greatest polluters’ moral and ethical corruption, where it should and needs to be sharply focused.
To me, general human existence has for too long been analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line. Many of them further fight over to whom among them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it – all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated.
But I still see some hope for spaceship Earth and therefor humankind due to environmentally conscious and active children, especially those who are approaching/reaching voting age.
In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off thus making way for far more healthy-planet, thus people-minded voters.
Frank Sterle Jr.
White Ro​ck, B.C.
-1
Interesting view, naive, but interesting. I too hope for a cleaner world and it’s moving that way. Your belief that the fossil fuel industry run everything is amusing but inaccurate. They’re filling a need and the ones to blame are the ones using it. Industry needs fossil fuels to operate and they would switch in one second to alternative fuels if it made economic sense as would most people. It’s becoming more cost effective to switch and that is what is going to drive change more than doom and gloom scenarios because at the end of the day people are selfish. The government could make fossil fuels prohibitively expensive tomorrow but they don’t. Why? Because their would be chaos as people’s employment and standard of living fell and no sector would be immune to it. I admire environmentalists for the stands they make but also feel sorry for them as they spout their views using their phones and driving their EV’s that were built and made possible by the very thing they condemn. Reminds me of the kid who’s asked where milk comes from and they say the grocery store.
On June 23, 1988 James Hansen, a specialist in atmospheric physics and then Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in New York City, testified before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. It was a key turning point in the development of climate change research, and drew widespread public attention to the issue of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and climatic change.
Just think where we would be today had we listened to those warnings and taken action then. The measures required then would have been modest by today’s standards and, who knows, maybe Alberta would be a world leader in energy-use efficiency and alternative energy.
It’s really pretty simple, systems that fail to adjust to changing circumstances, whether that’s a microbe or a provincial/national economy, face an uncertain future.
Had we listened to James Hansen in 1988 we would be doing what Europe is doing and that is burying thousands of non decomposable windmill blades from worn out windmills. We would have more places like Baotou Mongolia that extract rare earths for the Alt Energy industry that make the Oilsands look like Disney World and we would all be lying to ourselves, as treehuggers now do, that the planet is greener because of “their choices” of what is green energy!
Soon the huggers will stand unified that Nuclear Power in the form of 4th Gen SMRs is a “killer for the planet” not because 4th Gen is not Green, but because Treehuggers cannot own a Nuclear Plant so their is nothing in it for them.
So they will continue to promote electric cars, even though they know the Grid will never handle the onslaught of Liberal Mandated Electric Cars by 2035. They will continue to promote non stable power solutions for the failing grid and in the end, they will retire to some island where 1 windmill will work and say they tried to save the planet!
Meanwhile, like Germany, who is burying fiberglass blades or mulching them up as if they disappear is now faced with a $1trillion dollar bill on how to fix their grid because they ignored it because “going alt energy was too important and must be done NOW”. So, now that their “25 year lifetime windmills” are failing at 12-17 years, they find themselves replacing windmills at the same time they need to “finally” do work on their failing grid.
Germans, although smart didn’t figure out in time that their is a difference between stable grid power and “green save the planet power” because they were too busy with hugger symbolism!
The concept of every little bit helps serves the hugger purpose. So destroying the Alberta Economy is a milestone all wish to achieve. Doing so would reduce GHGs by about 2% in the world. Have you seen any of them suggest we should all go after China and India, two of the greatest contributors? Of course not, destroy your own economies for 2% and feel good is the game!
After “Trillions” spent in Germany on Alt Energy, they sit 6th on the list of emmitters of GHGs. Canada is 11th on the same list. We contribute .56GT of GHGs and Germany .75GT
Most of our contributions are transport and home heating. With a land mass 2700 times larger then Germany, Canada should somehow learn to keep up? Does it not strike you as strange that large mass countries in the coldest part of the planet seem to generate more GHGs then others? Have you ever bothered to figure out why Mr Sterle, or do you live in Trudeau’s la la land too?
As for the Children of today taking charge? As they struggle not knowing if male or female, I feel safe knowing their clarity will guide the planet!
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
agreed – and what always gets in the way is the power/greed crew. what dennis notes below is yet another example of the power/greed crew. common sense and an acknowledgement of the need to alter our approaches is not at all what brought europe to its folly; it is the usual feeding over of big bucks from the public trough to the biggest sleazes on the planet, in the name of good works. if one examines the brunt of the “green” energy cos that are getting the biggest chunks of public handouts, it is notable that they are privately held cos that include the oligarchs of our day.
“Both Generation Z and millennials are voting generations.” Interesting fact: “65% of those between the ages of 18 to 24 voted for Biden – 11% more than any other age group.”
And, in Alberta, at this time, the AB NDP has the “committed support of most younger voters.”
“More bad news for UCP as poll by Leger shows NDP leading in Edmonton, Calgary and even rural Alberta”
http://www.albertapolitics.ca/2021/08/more-bad-news-for-ucp-as-poll-by-leger-shows-ndp-leading-in-edmonton-calgary-and-even-rural-alberta
ty for the thoughtful letter. and ty for youth, as those already here for a lifetime have left the planet far more compromised than that which they inherited.