Nova Scotia needs Alberta’s oil money

Re. “A new message for bumper stickers, Letters, Dec. 8

The writer suggests Alberta is the site of “ecological devastation.” Hardly. Has he ever been north of Edmonton, where there is pristine wilderness? Or south, for that matter, writing as he is from Nova Scotia, where my Bluenoser neighbour says 10 bucks an hour is a good wage.

The writer says our oil and gas industry is non-sustainable, and responsible for one-tenth of Canada’s carbon footprint. Maybe so, but we won’t run out of oil for 200 years, and Canada’s total carbon footprint is only 1.6 per cent of the world’s. China’s is something well over 20 per cent, while India’s and America’s aren’t much better.

All human activity could cease in Canada and it would not make the tiniest dent in world carbon emissions or global warming. Considering maybe a million trucks deliver goods to North Americans alone, the need for fossil fuel will not end anytime soon.

When all vehicles go electric, the power grid will not be able to handle all of us plugging in. We are sitting on a gold mine, and we are fools if we don’t exploit it — if only to finance the search for cleaner alternative sources of energy and assist have-not provinces like Nova Scotia. H.N. Huget, Edmonton

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