Sample Letter to Send to Your MLA
Hello Mr./Ms -----,
I am a resident of ---- and UBC student who is very concerned about the tar sands and the implications surrounding a proposed pipeline leading from Alberta to the the Gulf of Mexico.
I don't really know who to turn to talk about my concerns (eg. how tar sands expansion will damage water supplies, the air, the soil, increase cancer rates, rapidly speed up global warming that will create a climate that is ripe for mosquitoes and pests that spread disease, increase the intensity and frequency of floods and storms in the cooler months and droughts in the hotter months, and will melt the last of our glaciers and snow pacts that feed our rivers, , etc.). Because of all these negative consequences, production of the tar sands is an increasingly disturbing development.
Is it possible to talk to you in your office on ----- to talk about these issues? I'm really interested to know what you think about them and if there's anything you can do to help out.
Thank you for your time.
----
I am a resident of ---- and UBC student who is very concerned about the tar sands and the implications surrounding a proposed pipeline leading from Alberta to the the Gulf of Mexico.
I don't really know who to turn to talk about my concerns (eg. how tar sands expansion will damage water supplies, the air, the soil, increase cancer rates, rapidly speed up global warming that will create a climate that is ripe for mosquitoes and pests that spread disease, increase the intensity and frequency of floods and storms in the cooler months and droughts in the hotter months, and will melt the last of our glaciers and snow pacts that feed our rivers, , etc.). Because of all these negative consequences, production of the tar sands is an increasingly disturbing development.
Is it possible to talk to you in your office on ----- to talk about these issues? I'm really interested to know what you think about them and if there's anything you can do to help out.
Thank you for your time.
----
Some Things You May Want to Talk About With Your Local Representative
Fact: Each day the Alberta tar sands emit as much carbon dioxide as a million cars. The CO2 ends up in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming, which will melt our mountainous snow pacts, causing rivers to dry up, that is until the next ice age brings us more snow pact and glaciers. (Tony Clarke,Tar Sands Showdown, 152). Alberta's Rocky Mountains lost 1/3 of their ice mass in the last 30 years (Clarke, 167).
Fact: Two thirds of the Athabasca River and two thirds of regional groundwater is allocated for tar sands operations, even though no public reports have been made as to how much groundwater is actually in the ground ("Troubled Waters, Troubling Trends" report).
Fact: The 15,000 square kilometer sized tailings ponds surrounding the Alberta tar sands contain heavy metals, napthemic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. If the dykes break, the toxins could kill fish, wildlife, and people. (Remember Hungary? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sap82EoxAwk)
Fact: Environmentalists, scientists, and people living in 'cancer alley' near the Alberta tar sands have called the production, a "slow motion oil spill in the region's river systems." The fish are "covered with tumours and mutations" and "fish frying in a pan 'smells like burning plastic.'" Moose meat contains up to 453x the acceptable arsenic, mercury, and benzene levels. (Clarke, 169-170).
Fact: The Boreal Forest in Alberta is one of the largest and last intact forests in the world. It is also the largest carbon sink in the world, and it is being stripped for the tar sands. Only 10% of the forest is legally protected from oil industry use. (Clarke, 152, 173-4).
The Earth is heating up at an alarming rate, much faster than we anticipated even 5 years ago. Within a couple of decades runaway climate disaster will be unavoidable; we are already being hit by some of the disastrous effects. Global warming causes:
- an increase in giant, freak storms that tear the roofs off houses, send golf-ball sized hail raining down on us, and flood rivers that mutilate the ground, ripping away trees and top soil. According to the world's largest insurance company (who did a study with a team at Harvard), these storms will "overwhelm the adaptive capacities of even developed nations; large areas and sectors become uninsurable; major investments collapse; and markets crash....In effect, parts of developed countries would experience developing nation conditions for prolonged periods as a result of natural catastrophes and increasing vulnerability due to the abbreviated return times of extreme events" (Paul Epstein & Evan Mills, Climate Change Futures, Harvard Medical School, 2005).
- a serious melting of the ice caps and snow pacts of the world, which will cause floods at first, but eventually won't supply many rivers with anything, at all (Bill McKibben, Eaarth)
- food production all over the world will slow due to the changes in climate and the decrease in available water. According to a published UBC report, even here in the Okanagan, we are going to have troubles managing water and food production because a) we already have the lowest amount of water per person in Canada and b) the summers will be warmer and longer, so there will be more of a demand on our existing water supplies to water crops, etc.
....
- so many bad things!
That you would like to see a national referendum on closing the tar sands.
That you would like to see investment in green jobs!
