Canadian Nobel Prize winners Alice Munro (Literature 2013) and Jack Szostak (Medicine 2009) are among the 42 Nobel Prize recipients who have written Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland demanding that the Canadian government reject the proposed Teck Frontier mine proposal. The Teck Frontier mine would cover 24,000 hectares and would produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen each day at its peak. The proposal includes plans to produce oil starting in 2026, and to continue on producing right through to the 2060s.
The Nobel recipients’ letter states, “Projects that enable fossil-fuel growth at this moment in time are an affront to our state of climate emergency, and the mere fact that they warrant debate in Canada should be seen as a disgrace. They are wholly incompatible with your government’s recent commitment to net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. And with clear infringements on First Nations rights, such projects fly in the face of rhetoric and purported efforts towards reconciliation.”
Click HERE to read the full text of the letter as printed in today’s Guardian.
photo The Narwhal