Re: ‘Sheep’ follow their climate saviour, (Letters, PQB News, Oct. 29)
Hans Rysdyk is very critical of Greta Thunberg. This tells us far more about Mr. Rysdyk and people who think like him than it does about Ms. Thunberg, whose power comes from being a symbol of change.
Make no mistake, the world is changing. Fossil fuels like oil and natural gas are being displaced – slowly to begin with, but more quickly in the near future – by electricity generated by low-carbon technologies like wind and solar.
The energy transition is inevitable because it is driven primarily by technology change, capital investment, markets and consumers, and secondarily by the climate policies advocated by Greta. The only question now is when not if.
Change is hard for people like Mr. Rysdyk. During any great structural change, there are always laggards who complain loudly but are nevertheless dragged kicking and screaming into the new world.
Rather than resisting the energy transition and efforts to mitigate the climate crisis, I suggest to Mr. Rysdyk that he spend less time writing letters to the editor and more time educating himself.
That way, readers of your newspaper will be spared more ill-informed diatribes asking silly questions like “did Greta swim to Canada from Scandanavia?”
Markham Hislop
Parksville