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LETTERS: Protesting on everyone’s behalf

Those people protesting up there on Burnaby Mountain are doing their part for all of us.

I’m sure there are many people out there that have heard the phrase, “If you can imagine it, it can happen.”

It is true. More people need to pay attention to that very phrase.  Those people up there on Burnaby Mountain protesting against the inevitable happening of allowing Kinder Morgan to install their pipe lines for the purpose of getting that oil out of Alberta and on out to the rest of the world.  Wake up people, there’s only one thing that matters ... it’s all about the money!

The question is not “will it happen?”  You should be asking yourselves “When?” Will it be in your life time? Your children’s? Your grandchildren?  Maybe not even till your grandchildren’s children.  But, it will happen.  That is if we humans don’t destroy the planet first.

Remember the great oil spill in the gulf of Mexico? Not all that many years ago really.  That mess has never been fully eradicated.  It’s just not entirely possible. How about the Exxon, Valdez oil spill up at Prince William Sound in March 24, 1989, just up there in the Gulf of Alaska.  Remember that?  And, there have been many more oil spills, too numerous to list all here.

Yes, they can make machines to take humanity to outer space, but remember, they too have had their catastrophes?  And remind yourselves how much devastation will be caused with another oil spill.  How many years will it take, when one will again see growth on that land or in the sea.

What will happen to the food supply situation?  Many species of wild life will be affected, as their food source will also be affected.  So as our government always uses the phrase “from ocean to ocean to ocean,” in their political jargon, when referring to our country.  Remind yourself this is our land, everyone’s.

Those people protesting up there on Burnaby Mountain are doing their part for all of us. Oil is a commodity, not a necessity.  You can grow crops and eat, and the plant life will sustain the wild life, and both you and they can eat.  You cannot eat oil. And if you think you can’t grow crops without the oil to run those big machines ask yourself what did humanity do for sustenance before machinery requiring oil? They survived, they worked hard for it, but they survived without oil.

Give those people, taking their time to protest on our behalf, on Burnaby Mountain, the support you should all be giving them.

Joan Johnson

Penticton