Our Premier, Mr. Horgan, has spent the last few weeks opposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline because it will increase tenfold the amount of tanker traffic through our Southern Orca’s habitat and bring an inherent risk of oil spills on our lands. However, he has now decided that it is okay to built a massive LNG plant and pipeline further north on our coastline.  His argument is that it is okay to do this because LNG is not as bad as coal.   The argument that Mr Horgan uses is invalid. Any first year critical thinking student could tell him that his claim is a fallacious statement. Just because coal is “dirty” does not make LNG “clean”.

           There would appear to be several other logical discrepancies within Mr Horgan’s argument. How can he oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline/terminal and yet still support a similarly perilous project just a few miles further up the same coastline? Building an LNG terminal at Kitimat will not only increase tanker traffic along our fragile coastline to unacceptable levels but those tankers will now be closer to the protected waters and whale migration routes of Haida Gwaii. How does he work out that allowing LNG tankers to sail across the northern Humpback and Gray whale migration routes is any different than the increase he says he opposes in the tanker traffic across the Southern Orca’s habitat?

            He has also stated that he is concerned about global warming, and sees LNG as a “cleaner” fuel and a viable alternative and interim transition away from coal and oil.  It is true that burning LNG produces 25% less co² than coal but it also  produces considerably more methane emission (up to twenty times more than oil!). Methane has a considerably greater impact on greenhouse gas accumulation than does co².   Isn’t this another case of a fallacious argument? How can pumping more methane into the atmosphere aid in reducing our carbon footprint?

          “Methane Slip’ is a technical term used to determine the quantifiable amount of methane that escapes into the atmosphere during refining/liquefying and loading LNG onto the tankers. Methane slip and the potential for catastrophic navigation errors are two of the reasons why  LNG tankers  (and their devastating incendiary potential) are banned from travelling through most of the major ports and urban coastal areas in the US.

          Shame on you for pretending to be an ally and a supporter of the environmental concerns of your citizens. Shame on you for using the manufactured political myth of “balancing the economy with the environment” to engage with alien global carpetbaggers who care nothing for our province and the legacy they will leave behind. Shame on you for selling out the environmental future of our province for a bag of  dirty coin and fleeting political fame. A cheap trick Mr Horgan and one that your children’s children (if they survive) will remember as your only legacy to what was once a pristine and environmentally responsible province.