Re: “ Copenhagen a failure of leadership,” St. Albert Gazette, Dec. 26, 2009. I have read several articles calling for leadership and not more delays. Climate change is more than just CO2 levels.
The prime minister has stated that the economy must be balanced with environmental policy. A knee-jerk reaction to lower CO2 levels could result in our economy collapsing and that includes Ontario and Quebec. I remember the controversy when hydro was being built in Quebec because of the immense loss of land due to dams creating large reservoirs. Hydro went ahead anyhow and that land is lost forever but nobody should argue that Quebec has that resource and it was the most effective and easiest energy to harness. Their energy is clean and they even sell it to the United States, making it profitable. We do not have the same resource capability as Quebec so as a result we have coal-fired generation plants and oil. Now we are debating whether we want a nuclear power plant in our backyard. That debate alone should tell us all that deciding our energy alternatives is not that easy.
The St. Albert Gazette’s operations to include printing exist today because of the lesser expensive coal-fired generation plants that produce the electricity for Alberta. My question to your “Our View” is what are you prepared to do? What has our community paper done to reduce its CO2 footprint? Even our Home Improvement advertisements in the paper list very little in relation to alternative energy sources. Why is that? Is this new technology costly? What needs to be done to encourage the change in attitudes? What about personal sacrifices? Each household has the ability to reduce consumption. That alone will help out. I can’t put a percentage on it but in principle these are the steps we can take today without government regulating us. Otherwise we are all just a bunch of hypocrites.
Hypocrisy is how I would sum up Copenhagen. Even our own mayors, premiers, MPs and MLAs were busy bashing Alberta. Most of us know about the transfer payments that go to provinces that have less gross domestic product. For those leaders (and they are not leaders) to say they are embarrassed to be Canadian, go find another country to live in because as far as I see it the sum of all our parts from coast to coast to coast makes us one of the best nations in the world to live in.
Alberta is not perfect but I am calling on our youth primarily to take charge of this issue, influence change not by protest but in your scholastic abilities to develop new technology, industry and lead change in government. It is best to influence all Canadians by getting them involved, not inciting them. We all have different ideologies, which is not going away. It takes a good leader to get all of us onside so please remember that when you are pursuing this or any other cause.
Rob Rheaume, St. Albert
