No fossil subsidies with my money

RE: KINDER MORGAN DEBATE

As the recent ice storm moved through our area, I found myself wondering about comments made by our prime minister regarding the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Trudeau’s calculations fail to include the costs of climate change and pipeline/tanker spills, and only focus on potential short-term financial gains. Trudeau is using the same flawed logic that many corporations use when air and water pollution are shared with you and me while the profits are hoarded by the CEOs and stock holders. These ignored shared costs are referred to as “externalities.”

The “externalities” from tarsands extraction are longterm real costs that affect the bottom line for all of us and must be taken into account. We know that projects increasing extraction of tarsands bitumen, which will be burned and will release increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses, will exaggerate the frequency and severity of these costly extreme-weather events.

In the long term, projects like the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline are not in our interests, even financially. I object to my tax dollars being spent to subsidize the fossil fuel industry and hope we can start a tax revolt: #NotWithMyMoney!

James S. Quinn, Hamilton