Dear Editor,

Readers of the Merritt Herald should be concerned about the biased and often inaccurate reporting coming from legislature reporter Tom Fletcher.

Last week’s diatribe against climate change is downright irresponsible. To state as Tom Fletcher does that there is no evidence of global temperature rise over 18 years is just plain untrue. Anyone today who is still skeptical of the occurrence of global climate change as a result of human activity is either willfully ignorant or has not taken the time to read up on the facts.

Even the Globe and Mail (hardly a leftist publication) concluded in an editorial this weekend: “The science appears to be beyond argument. The planet is warming, and human activity producing greenhouse gases is behind that warming.”

But one can perhaps understand why Tom Fletcher writes this stuff. Just follow the money. His boss in Black Press is David Black who is keen to spend his millions developing an oil refinery and boosting oil exports via B.C. ports.

Of course, any serious attention to the long-term climate damage caused by increased hydrocarbon exports has to be nipped in the bud, even if a reporter is setting himself up as a flat-Earth ignoramus.

If you are serious about discussing energy and climate change, Tom, I have a few suggestions for future columns.

How come Preston Manning (would you call him a leftist green zealot, Tom?) is joining a non-partisan commission to investigate how to deal effectively with carbon emissions?

Why is B.C.’s auditor general concerned that over the last five years the B.C. government gave away $1 billion in the form of tax credits to largely foreign-owned oil and gas companies fracking in northern B.C.?

How many people could be employed in B.C. if companies developing renewable energy were given $1 billion in taxpayers’ money?

Alan Burger
Merritt