Dear Editor:
I am writing in response to Glen Parker’s letter “Pipeline Co-operation Needed” in your Dec. 3 issue. He states that the use (and expansion) of North American pipelines is the lowest risk alternative for transporting Albertan oil. The lowest risk alternative is, in fact, to stop producing and using fossil fuels altogether. The extraction, transport, and use of fossil fuels is dangerous and destructive. It is imperative that all regions begin to produce their own energy locally. The state of Vermont has such an initiative, and the Philippines, El Salvador, and Iceland generate over a quarter of their energy needs from local geothermal power, a relatively safe and clean resource. As few as 100 geothermal projects could provide all of Canada’s electrical energy needs, and there is enough available here to exceed a million times our current demand. Time to have some vision and abandon the primitive, short-sighted reliance on resources that burn, explode, and pollute.
Howard Abel
North Vancouver
