I must say I am very worried of what is happening with BC politics. A few  people still think that the current Liberal party has done a good job for the  years they have been in power. It seems many of us suffer some kind of  short-retention-memory problem. Just try to remember some of the terrible things  that Campbell did, why he left his throne, the big mess he left behind,  that Ms. Clark has not been able to fix.

However, my biggest concern is the lack of talk about climate change in this  election. It is as if BC were immune to climate change.

For the Liberals, priority one is economic growth no matter what is the  trade-off. And they are more than willing to approve those pipelines carrying  tar sands bitumen [for the right slice of the money pie]. The next thing they  will do is to approve more super tankers to ship all that bitumen to foreign  countries.

But, it is obvious the Liberals can’t connect the dots between those  pipelines, climate change, forestry, fishery, agriculture, even tourism. As we  know, all of them are the primary industries in this province, and they all  depend on natural resources. The same natural resources being damaged by climate  change.

And this government can not understand that, regardless how much profit this  bitumen may bring to the province, when (not if) they fail, the  environmental costs caused by them will dwarf any profits. They never factor the  natural capital costs into their economic equations.

Many of you will say climate change is not happening in BC, where is it?  Where are the problems? Let me just point to a couple: draughts and the mountain  pine beetle that have killed thousand of hectares of forest (and by the way,  nobody know how much C02 is being released back to the atmosphere by all those  dead trees, and many scientists are saying that is another carbon bomb).  Another big one is the many issues with salmon and oysters.

The thing is, it is getting ugly and many scientists are saying this is only  the beginning. And with no doubt climate change is also having an impact in the  beautiful Okanagans. We all should be worried.

But, have you heard of any Mitigation or Adaptation Action plans for the  province? Exactly!

This is why my vote will be for NDP. In my humble opinion, I honestly think  they have a better understanding of the above problems and they can connect  those dots. At least, Mr. Dix has officially said he does not support those  pipelines.

norberto rodriguez dela vega

Oliver BC