The editor,
In your article “Pontiac elects first woman MP,” the economy and the environment were quietly at war, even within the same person. Our new MP declared that she will, “continue to do the work of growing our economy after the pandemic” while listing one of her priorities as fighting climate change. Those two don’t go together, despite how much politicians tell us we can have our cake and eat it too. As George Mondbiot recently wrote after detailing the stresses facing numerous living systems, “the various impacts have a common cause: the sheer volume of economic activity. We are doing too much of almost everything, and the world’s living systems cannot bear it.”
The war was then further emphasized by the two people whom you questioned about their top issue. One said, “prioritize economic development” and the other said that, “the Chalk River [nuclear disposal waste site] can’t go ahead.” And so we go round and round in the circle game: the economy, the environment, the economy, the environment. Perhaps you could offer our new MP the space to tell us where she stands in this unsustainable game she seems, perhaps unintentionally, to have endorsed.
Ken Victor
Chelsea, QC