To the editor;
Re: COP26
I have heard very little of Greta Thunberg in the mainstream corporate news-media since COVID hit the world. Nonetheless memorable was her apt, poignant description last year of the global-warming (non)efforts of fake or neo-environmentalist politicos as just more “blah, blah, blah”.
It’s no longer prudent to have so much of society, including our primary modes of transportation, reliant on traditional sources of energy. Yet, even as bone-dry-vegetation regions uncontrollably burn, mass addiction to fossil fuel products undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical. It must be convenient for big fossil fuel.
The industry and friendly governments can tell when a very large portion of the populace is too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves or their family, and virus-variant damage still being left in COVID-19’s wake — all while on insufficient income — to criticize them for whatever environmental damage their policies cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable.
Unfortunately, global governmental decisions on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions have thus far mostly reflected the profit interests of the influential fossil fuel industry. And the mainstream news-media are too quiet on the industry’s growing lobbyist potency.
Meanwhile, (neo)liberals and conservatives are overly preoccupied with vociferously criticizing one another for their politics and beliefs thus diverting attention away from the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. Albeit, it seems to be conservatives who don’t mind liberally polluting the planet.
Frank Sterle Jr.
White Rock, B.C.