Editor,

For decades, oil lobbyists have sown doubt about climate change.

This is called Astroturfing, and uses the media’s principle of fairness to both sides of a debate, giving 50 per cent of coverage to unfounded and often corrupted scientific papers. My family lives between wildfires in BC’s Kootenay mountains. It was so hot that the kids weren’t allowed outside after 9:30am last week. For the third year in a row, they’re putting wet towels over windows to block smoke out. Ontario has 91 wildfires today, BC has close to 400.

This is an emergency. It’s time for our leaders to act.

Prime Minister Trudeau talks like a climate leader, but doesn’t act like one. Canada still builds pipelines and plans fossil fuel production. A true climate leader would cut subsidies to oil companies. Trudeau hasn’t delivered the Just Transition Act promised last election, critical to phasing out fossil fuels in a way that puts workers and communities first. I’m glad to see 350.org launch the #CanadaOnFire campaign, calling on Trudeau to take emergency-level action, instead of just talking .

We have two demands: An immediate moratorium on new fossil fuel approvals and a freeze on all fossil fuel projects under construction, including the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Trans Mountain pipeline approval was granted based on false information from oil companies, each saying how much crude they’d need to move if future projections continued to grow exponentially, without alternative fuel, or international markets in play. It was built based on a series of corporate overestimates, not to mention indigenous land-claims and dangers to coastal waterways.

Second, just transition legislation to support impacted workers and communities, as we move towards a renewable energy future.

Luke Sargent

Cherry Valley