Letter-writer Mike Ward, of Duncan B.C., believes he has found its source and offers up a solution to the miasma:
B.C. and Alberta are engaged in a carbon trading scheme of sorts, and it is to no one’s advantage.Also, your mendacious self-congratulatory rhetoric notwithstanding, this is no time to take a victory lap, Catherine.
Alberta sends carbon-rich bitumen to British Columbia, which, when added to the atmosphere, contributes to global warming.
Global warming in turn produces the warmer winters that allow pine beetles to thrive, together with the longer, hotter, drier summers during which B.C.’s disease-stricken forests ignite.
Prevailing winds spread this suffocating carbon smoke throughout both provinces, choking the tourism industry, impacting people’s health, threatening towns and destroying the livelihood of communities dependant on forestry and fishing.
It hurts to think that the new normal for our children may be smoky white summer skies, breathing masks and the eerie light of an orange sun.
Further investment in this perverse carbon trading scheme, such as in the proposed Trans Mountain expansion, defies reason as it can only accelerate global warming and amplify the enormous economic, social and health consequences we are already experiencing.
Clearly, it’s time for change. The cost of our stubborn reliance on fossil fuels has simply become too great a price to pay.