Canadian music legend Neil Young recently compared the tar sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta to Hiroshima, the site of the first atomic bomb drop in August 1945. According to the Globe and Mail report, Young shared his concerns about the environmental impacts of the tar sands with those in attendance at an event for the National Farmers Union in Washington, D.C.
“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima, Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuels all over — the fumes everywhere — you can smell it when you get to town. The closest place to Fort McMurray that is doing the tarsands work is 25 to 30 miles out of town and you can taste it when you get to Fort McMurray. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this.”
Young also said he recently visited Alberta where “much of the oil comes from, much of the oil that we’re using here, which they call ethical oil because it’s not from Saudi Arabia or some country that may be at war with us.”
Young also said carbon emissions are causing extreme weather which is affecting farmers. “It’s climate chaos,” Young said. “This is a direct result of CO2, unless you don’t believe me and 99 per cent of the scientists. It’s a truth, these things are happening because there’s science behind them. It’s real.
“I’m ready to take the flag, nobody paid me to come here,” he added. “I’m here because I really see this, this is a disaster. We have a very very big problem, the CO2 is going to get to be a huge issue in the next couple of years.”
Young further attributed blame squarely at the feed of big oil companies singling out their misinformation when it comes to alternative fuels like ethanol,
“Who are these people who are telling us how dirty and how ethanol is not green?” he said. “I think it is the oil companies and the only thing about their product that is green is the money that goes into campaigns that pays for our representatives. We have to hold these people to task. They’re our people, they’re our representatives. Please don’t let them forget who they work for.”
© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.
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