We all have a role in cutting energy use
Re: “Electric vehicles in Canada: Fact versus fantasy,” June 8.
I can already hear the anti-Gwyn Morgan group sharpening their knives. Obviously, the papers must think he has some good points, as his comments do get printed quite often.
The only way we can get out of this mess is to work together. Both sides have to put their heads together and think.
Also, start to do your share to slow down oil consumption. Make every trip in your vehicle count and do more than one thing per trip.
I overheard an electric car owner bragging about how she is going to save the planet. She was standing at a local gas station with a bundle of wood that she was going to buy.
I pointed out that she wasn’t doing a very good job. I told her that the wood she was about to buy had come from the central Interior. It was transported on a diesel-powered truck and then came to the Island on a diesel-powered ferry.
I told her she could just go out into the bush and gather up some branches for her fire. This would also clean up the fuel that contributes to forest fire.
She stormed off with her firewood that came from Kelowna.
Now we have a big push to get rid of plastic bags. That’s good. But remember it was the save-the-planet types that forced the change to plastic bags.
Every idea has some merit, but not all are good. Grow up and get along. And you university students who protest everything, get your butts back to school and find a source of fuel that works.
You are the hope for the future. Start acting like it. Prove you’re as smart as you think you are.
Tim Young, retired redneck logger
Sooke
A column filled with misdirection
Re: “Electric vehicles in Canada: Fact versus fantasy,” June 8.
Despite his credentials as a former director of five global corporations, I’m again unmoved by Gwyn Morgan’s latest column. It’s full of the usual non-sequiturs and misdirection defending the oil industry.
There’s a political angle meant to shame government for not supporting the oil industry. The unforeseen tragedy in the Ukraine, though, is irrelevant to the scale and scope of the threat to our civilization.
He offers up a lengthy personal assessment of political opposition. It’s a detour that serves no purpose to his column.
He talks about the infrastructure costs of transitioning. He should talk to the insurance industry and government about their current and projected payouts for climate disasters. Compare numbers and then get back to us.
There’s some bizarre hyperbole that it will be necessary to expropriate agricultural farmland to convert it to charging stations. That one made me chuckle.
There’s the usual bit about China cancelling out our emission reductions. I see China as a market for any technologies we can develop. Is Morgan even a businessman?
Other points can be dismissed, or minimized, because he assumes that there will be no innovation in engineering or best practices within these alternative technologies over the coming decades.
Once you distil Morgan’s article for valid arguments, he makes one solid point. Right now EVs are heavily subsidized. At some point EV owners are going to have to start contributing to infrastructure costs. Otherwise I think this column is only meant to keep Morgan employed.
Mike Laplante
Saanich
Cause of high price of gas: taxes
The federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says we pay six different taxes on gas that account for 38 per cent of our pump price. Thirty-eight per cent of $2.349 is 89.26 cents.
Dan Ogle
North Saanich
Trudeau, his Airbus and burning fuel
Interesting to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife leaving Ottawa for the summit in Los Angeles flying in his Airbus jet.
Is there any reason that he could not have taken one of the smaller Challenger aircraft? In these days of cutbacks and restraints it would have been a better move, and perhaps endear him to Canadians. Of course, it would make a great prop for a photo op.
The Airbus was originally delivered to Wardair in 1987 and transferred to the RCAF in 1992. It burns a lot more fuel than the Challenger jets.
However, I don’t think that concerns the PM.
William Jesse
Victoria
Make our health care a top priority
Health care and medical care, despite overlaps, are two different things. Medical care is intervention while health care is prevention.
We need to quit referring to our serious medical-care crisis as a health-care crisis. Language is important in how we perceive a problem.
We need both health care and medical care, but health care more so. Often, medical care becomes necessary because of lifestyle, carelessness, disease, a person’s genes, age, etc., making its successful operation essential.
We can improve health care through education and taking it more seriously. Improving health reduces the need for medical care, its expensive costs and can help prevent a crisis no one wants.
According to the “father of modern medicine,” William Osler: “One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.” Something to think about.
Ivan Olynyk
Victoria
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