Dear Editor:
Re: Protesters help terrorism, Letters to the editor, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 24; and Is writer living in a glass house? Letters to the editor, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 1. If the Eva Dertons and Ziggy Eckardts were really concerned about terrorism, you would find them at anti-war rallies and protesting the arms trade, but they don't do that.
When the Eva Dertons and Ziggy Eckardts warn us about the threat of terrorism, all they are concerned about is violence by Arabs or Muslims or anyone who threatens to reduce the profits of the Western petroleum industry.
As I have pointed out before, terrorism has existed since the first human societies. It has always been used as a tool of military strategy.
You can never eliminate terrorism, because there will always be individual psychos. What you can do is eliminate large-scale terrorism, and you do that by eliminating social injustice and war.
As for the tar sands, there are two main reasons to leave that dirty oil in the ground. The biggest one is the actual and potential environmental degradation, which has been well established, except in the minds of the global warming deniers, who reject all science and make up their own reality.
Even if it were necessary to use that oil, we should refine it in Canada and make products out of it in Canada instead of shipping it overseas as raw material for the lowest possible price, which is the Conservatives' way of managing Canadian resources.
However, it isn't necessary to use that oil. There is enormous potential in the sustainable energy sector, and we need to be investing the wealth of the planet there.
There are only two applications where a petroleum-based power source is needed. Those are armoured fighting vehicles and combat aircraft. No other mobile power source needs such high energy densities, and the stationary ones can be as bulky as you like. So this is the real logic.
If you want to fight wars, you need a lot of oil, and you have to fight wars to secure your supplies of oil. This is why you will never find the global warming deniers at an anti-war rally.
Victor Finberg, Burnaby
