Pipeline a risk we have to take

Dear editor: The pipeline and tanker traffic have risks. I really wish that there were no risks, but the reality is that risk exists in life everywhere and everything. Including pipelines.

There are oil pipelines all over the world moving gobs of oil at this very moment. Oil tankers constantly navigate the planet’s oceans loaded with enormous amounts of crude.

For anyone who uses oil (and that is pretty much everyone) your gas and oil has run through a pipeline, has been off-loaded from a tanker, has been trucked or ridden the rails before it gets to you.

The risks involved will always be there. Maybe not in your neighbourhood but some town, city, province, state or country takes those risks so that you can drive your car and heat your home and yes, eat your food.

Do the protesters of all political stripes, all creeds and colours really feel that they can enjoy using these energy sources without sharing the risk? Other jurisdictions take those very risks and deliver fuels to British Columbia, day in and day out.

The green politicians and protesters suck up those resources like every other citizen. How then can they, with a straight face, deny its passage where they live?

So according to the current crop of antipipeline protesters it’s OK for all those dumb suckers in Alberta, Saskatchewan (and too many American states to name) to take those risks to deliver fuel to British Columbia.

The anti-pipeline and anti-tanker group haf no problem filling up their own car, buying their plastic kayaks, synthetic mountain-man clothing and shopping in petroleum-dependent grocery stores. And they don’t care that communities elsewhere on the continent risk their environment to produce and get them the very product they “will not allow” to transit British Columbia.

Tell me, all you grandstanding politicians, all you self-righteous eco-NIMBYs that you will swear off oil in all its forms and all its benefits.

If you can’t do this then your argument of protecting our environment while conveniently ignoring the risks that others take on your behalf rings hollow and is hypocrisy in its purest form. Daryl Chadwell Okanagan Falls