Editor,

It saddens me greatly to see our homes and sacred biodiversity of this land, destroyed by events like the fires in Jasper. Powered by environmental destruction and burning emissions from the fossil fuel industry, summers have become hotter and drier, making this sort of destruction more frequent and ever closer. In the past, oil and gas were used in the name of progress, but can we still use that word in 2024? 

Now it looks less like progress, and more like stagnation. 

It鈥檚 2024 and we are still reliant on this archaic and destructive tech from the 1800s. Why are fossil fuel profits prioritized over the multiple studies on their impacts to our collective health? Our environment? Studies conducted by this very industry in the 1960s and '70s?

They knew the impacts they would have and lobbied our politicians to keep us stuck in the past and their pockets stuffed with our taxes. We suffer the record-shattering effects of the climate crisis, while the fossil fuel industry shatters records in profits. Make it make sense.

Recently, multiple societies around the world have started to sue Big Oil because of these very issues. Meanwhile in Canada, we contend with their gaslighting campaigns, aimed at minimizing the impacts they have been knowingly causing for decades. This is the direct hindrance of progress.

It鈥檚 incredibly disappointing that our leadership chooses to defend corporate profits instead of investing in renewable initiatives. The benefits would be multiple and quickly evident. Compared to burning fossil fuels, they are more efficient, cheaper, and healthier. They reduce CO2 impact, build energy resilience, both adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change ... AND these benefits compound over time. There is no question that this is the way.

And yet the choice is made for us ... to precariously drill into the Earth. To build costly and inefficient pipelines that often leak, poisoning soil, groundwater, fresh water, oceans, the air ... destroying ecosystems and the nature we all rely on. All paid for by our taxes, traded for our futures. It doesn鈥檛 make sense.

So let鈥檚 move forward.

It鈥檚 time to stop letting the fossil fuel industry control our present, futures, and governance.

It鈥檚 time to stop using our taxes to subsidize their polluting and destructive activities.

It鈥檚 time to focus on transitioning towards the renewable energy they have been actively hindering. 

The Canadian people are more than ready to move on to clean energy. Studies and feedback campaigns have proven this time and time again. It鈥檚 the sensible solution, the healthy solution, and at this point, the only economically viable solution. It鈥檚 time to stop feeding stagnation and destruction, and focus on the strong clean energy transition that we deserve. That is real progress.

Wendy Hamilton, 性视界传媒