Stacey Gaiga, Comox Valley Echo, December 30, 2011

As a salmon farming biologist, it's obvious Terry Neilsen couldn't care less what implications any job that sacrifices innocent lives has on the human condition, for a paycheque.

I suppose he believes the toxic waste running downstream that Raven coal mining will produce, won't harm the life in our waters, just as his salmon farming industry continues to deny the same.

As much as he is obliged to support salmon farming for a living, he most likely supports all the other human occupations on this planet that deem the earth and us expendable.

I could surmise that he doesn't have children but if he does, he obviously doesn't care or isn't considering their future. Generations that will face many difficulties, because of people's actions and attitudes like his, that are destroying our planet. Those who believe the almighty dollar is more precious than life itself.

With his head in the sand, just as he is a salmon farming biologist, I imagine it took great courage to explain how short term monetary gain and subsequent pain and suffering is worth the sacrifice, for his lifestyle while he lives on this earth. He and the other ignoramus idiots that refuse to acknowledge, or care, that we need healthy land, air and water to survive as a species, like all the other species we share this life with.

A TOXIC planet = NO sustenance = NO life, never mind a lifestyle. This mine will not improve the human condition. Corporate and political greed for money is creating the poverty he refers to. There are other choices to improve life for many in BC, that government and corporations refuse to implement.

What people like Mr. Neilsen are really saying is we are all expendable, for if he truly believed in this coal mining industry as he says he does, then he would trade a dangerous underground mining job for his free willy simplistic black and white approach to life, to make a living. But, he won't.

Stacey Gaiga
Port Alberni

© Comox Valley Echo 2011

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