Open letter from an Albertan to his government

14 June 2019

The Honourable Sonya Savage, Minister of Energy

Government of Alberta

324 Legislature Building

10800 - 97 Avenue NW
Edmonton, AB

Dear Minister:

Recently I read in the news that you are establishing a “war room” to defend the oil and gas industry from criticism. I urge you to abandon this misguided project.

We are facing the greatest threat humanity has ever had to deal with—global warming—and you are defending production of the major source of the threat. This is perverse. Climatologists, i.e. the experts on global warming, tell us that if we don’t deal with it with great urgency, it may become irreversible. If that happens, it will bring global civilization down around our ears.

In the 1940s, we threw everything we had at the Nazi menace because it threatened European civilization. Global warming is much worse—it threatens global civilization. We must use every tool at our disposal.

And yet you reject carbon taxing even though almost all economists including this year’s two Nobel Prize winners, both specialists in climate change, believe it is one of our best instruments. Furthermore, your policies seem to suggest we should continue to produce fossil fuels indefinitely even though that will accelerate the threat. And you are even going to war against David Suzuki, a man who has committed his life to promoting respect for the natural world, the source of all our wealth. The idea of my tax dollars being used to hound such people is profoundly unsettling. And I am not surprised that we earn the censure of outsiders when we engage in such regressive actions.

I am 84 years old and have no children, so why do I care if humanity’s future is ruined? I will not suffer from the coming societal collapse, so perhaps I should simply sigh and pass on into the great beyond. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I am fond of the human race, and I would like to see it prosper for many generations after I am long gone. That will not happen if we do not deal urgently and forcefully with global warming.

I realize we cannot phase out fossil fuels overnight, but we must at least set ourselves solidly on that course. I beg you to rearrange your priorities and become leaders in our species’ overarching challenge.

Sincerely,
Bill Longstaff

cc. The Honourable Jason Kenny, Premier of the Province of Alberta

      Joe Ceci, MLA, Calgary-Buffalo