Dear Editor:
I have been very favourably impressed with the commentary by Mike Robinson ("Why rush to develop Alberta's oil sands," News-Optimist Jan 25). Robinson, a former negotiator for big oil projects, was evidently employed to help make a case for big pipeline and drilling projects, but in the process also had to listen to a lot of good arguments against those projects. It appears he has now become a spokesman for those counselling a more thoughtful, reasoned, and pragmatically long-range approach: in other words, an oilman with a conscience.
I have long wondered why intelligent, well-educated and no doubt otherwise relatively decent people, could keep pushing on with efforts to mine our finite, non-renewable resources at a maximum rate for maximum, short-term profits for their shareholders, even though most of them probably know - or are deliberately blind to - the long-range pitfalls of that approach.
It was especially refreshing to read this commentary by a man who chose to let his conscience be his guide.
Russell Lahti
Battleford
