The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
WHAT OTHER PROOF DO YOU NEED?
EDITORIAL - January 9, 2007
We thought sooner or later the coal-fired energy debate would lose it's spark and we'd all start the new year off talking about and concerning ourselves with other issues.
According to a province-wide survey conducted by Strategic Communications (between November 23 and 30, 2006) on behalf of Sierra Legal, the majority of British Columbians have strong opinions regarding energy.
The survey says 82% of British Columbians agree and 66% strongly agree that the BC government should enact climate change legislation with mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Only 6% strongly disagree.
The survey gets better: following a list of realistic energy options that BC may pursue to meet its energy needs, 86% strongly agree the province should encourage renewable energy such as wind and solar power.
79% strongly agree BC should encourage energy efficiency and conservation.
Here's the cruncher: Only 9% strongly agreed that the province should encourage coal-fired power plants compared with 69% who either disagreed strongly (48%) or somewhat (21%) that BC should look to coal-fired power.
Let's think about this for a moment. Only 9% of those questioned thought coal-fired energy was the right thing for BC to do. Let's break that down further.
A total of 601 adult Canadian citizens of voting age who reside in BC were polled and 54 of them said they liked the sound of coal-fired energy. That's got to send a pretty clear message to someone out there.
The poll should have included the question: Would you be in favour of coal-fired energy plants being established in your community? And how about this gem: Are you grateful the coal-fired energy plants being established in BC are located in rural areas such as Princeton?
Okay, so the last paragraph is us having a little fun, but if you've been sitting on the fence on this issue, these survey results may make you interested in doing a little homework of your own.
If you'd like to download the poll it can be found at: www.sierralegal.org/m_archive
/pr07_01_02pollresults.pdf.
If the majority of British Columbians don't want this, what's that say about us?
