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LETTER: Questioning MP Calkins statements on pollution

A Ponoka News reader challenges MP Blaine Calkins’ statement to students on pollution
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Dear editor,

I have read the appalling statement made by MP Blaine Calkins to junior high school students, in which he said it was still a question in his mind whether CO2 is pollution. He said CO2 was food for plants. But he failed to mention that we are producing far more of it than world’s trees can absorb.

And then continuing in his uncultivated plane of reasoning, he said natural disasters were killing more people simply because there were more people now than before.

Really?

Can an MP, one of the 338 individuals that people in Canada elected to produce legislation to govern the country be so primitive in trying to ignore the scientifically proven fact of climate change?

It is even more pathetic that the denial of environmental pollution and climate change was attempted at an institution of learning, no less.

As a politician, Mr. Calkins has the right to defend the interests of the big oil and he might think that the current political climate, whereby people are angry because of low oil prices and lack of adequate means to export Alberta’s production, will help his reelection campaign based on denial of science.

It is likely that, given the traditional voting patterns of Alberta’s electorate, he will win again

The question is if the electorate in his constituency, which encompasses Ponoka, will remember at the time of voting that Mr. Calkins sees no harm in distorting facts while speaking to young minds in his effort to continue to legislate in favour of big oil.

Mustafa Eric