EDITOR,
I read with interest the clarification B.C. Hydro's Dave Conway made in response to Nicole Trigg's thoughtful article on our documentary film Peace Out ("Site C issues clarified," Letters, Chief, March 16). It's a shame Mr. Conway didn't speak with us directly.Our repeated requests to interview a spokesperson at B.C. Hydro during the filming of Peace Out were ignored. Reps from the natural gas industry, the nuclear industry and the tar sands freely agreed to interviews, resulting in their positions being presented fairly in the film. Oddly, it appears government-owned B.C. Hydro is more cautious of public scrutiny than even the privately owned tar sands.
Clearly B.C. Hydro has done a good job of providing us with power. Our film acknowledges that. But Mr. Conway's assertion that the controversial Site C dam is being driven by a domestic demand set to increase by 50 per cent over the next two decades is dangerously misleading.
Hydro's position is: 1. B.C. households will continue to expand current wasteful practices. 2. B.C. voters will continue to support governments that supply subsidized power to the growing list of private corporations exploiting our non-renewable resources under the false flag of "job creation." 3. Our government will continue to permit the gas fracking companies to permanently remove the water from Williston Reservoir before it can generate electricity for us. 4. The proposed U.S.-driven tar sands expansion will create demand for the fracked gas our B.C. water is enabling. 5. The global climate change threat that has alarmed the international scientific community will turn out to be a hoax. In short - B.C. Hydro is betting that we will proceed with what the scientific community believes is collective suicide - and Hydro is going to provide us with the power to do so.
The position taken by the internationally respected scientists in our film Peace Out is that this growth-at-any-cost policy is a fatal error. Scientists are not conspirators, they're fierce competitors. Yet their consensus is that catastrophic climate change is fast becoming a certainty. Actuarial scientists have convinced most of us to sacrifice thousands of dollars every year to buy car insurance. This in spite of the fact that it's statistically very unlikely we'll be involved in a car accident. And yet we question the climate experts' conclusion that the best insurance policy we can buy against climate disaster is to make sacrifices that dramatically reduce all energy use. Should we build Site C? Ask your kids what they think.
Charles Wilkinson
Director, Peace Out
Vancouver
