The headline over Tom Fletcher’s Jan. 21, 2014 column (“Old man take a look at your facts”) is very amusing... given all of the factual errors that Fletcher makes in his column.
First, he distorts and misrepresents Neil Young’s observations about the tar sands and then claims, “All of those statements are false.”
Really? Let’s take a look at Fletcher’s manipulative distortions and then look at reality:
“It looks like a war zone up there! Hiroshima!” That statement (metaphor) is true, as anyone who has seen the photos and video knows full well. The only difference is that the devastation of Hiroshima stopped a terrible war, while tar sands devastation is motivated only by financial gain. But the devastation is sadly similar in type and scale.
“If it keeps going it will be like the Moon!”
True again. Nothing lives or grows on the Moon, and nothing will live or grow in the tar sands.
“There’s no reclamation!” More accurately, Neil Young should have said there is no successful reclamation. There are small, feel-good attempts to fool the public (watch the TV commercials), but nothing will reclaim that vast area. It’s dead and will stay dead, as dead things always do.
“Tar sands oil is all going to China and that’s why their air is so bad!” Neil Young didn’t say any of that. What he said is that the main motivation of tar sands development, pipelines and tankers is to get tar sands oil into the Asian market, especially China. Once in China, that oil will contribute to China’s appalling emissions – emissions that not only choke the people of China, but the world at large. Neil Young wonders why. Me too.
This column is simply one more example of Fletcher’s contempt for anyone who dares to question the wisdom of environmental destruction for profit.
David Hathaway