Friendly ultimatum to the Sierra Club of Canada

This article was originally posted to Sinking LifeBoat.

We still value your opinion.

We're working to create our vision for Sierra Club Canada five years from now.

If you haven't had a chance to complete this opinion survey, we'd like to remind you that you still can!

It will take a little of your time, but will make a great difference to our planning!

We would appreciate your reply by Friday, July 4. Please use this link to fill out your survey.

Sierra Club of Canada

Dear Sierra Club,

This is just a friendly reminder that you have until Friday, July 4th to reply to MY “survey”. This was the set of questions I sent to you to pre-empt the pre-fabricated set of twenty-one questions that you sent to me, not a single one of which mentioned over-population or over-immigration as an issue or factor to be considered in the environmental degradation of Canada. Kind of like my fitness instructor stressing cardio, strength training and flexibility without mentioning my chain smoking habit.

Please reply to my questions by my arbitrary deadline or I will continue to follow your lead and make policy decisions without your input.

Remember our slogan. “Tell us what we want to hear or take us off your list!” (but we'll never take you off of ours. And Oh, of course, send us your money to save our poster endangered animal of the month ….”

In case you have forgotten, these were the questions in my survey:

And if you think we should just keep tightening our belts to accommodate more and immigrants, cut back our per capita consumption more and more just to increase total consumption through immigration more and more, tell us, how many immigrants is too many for you? Another 10? 20? 30? 40? 50 million? How many Canadians would there be in an ecologically sound Canada as defined by Sierra Club Canada? Do you have any evidence that wildlife “sanctuaries” and reserves enjoy permanent safety from human population growth? As for Sustainable Energy options, is there a technological fix for the species lost from human population growth? Is there a technological fix for marine life eradicated from over harvesting and pollution? Is there a technological fix for soils exhausted by 10,000 years of intensive farming? Why does the Sierra Club think that climate change warrants more concern than the loss of biodiversity services? Why does the Sierra Club not seem to understand that population that is the underlying agency of both? No climate change without climate changers. Growing cities shrinking wilderness.

One should also ask: Why haven't you taken action on your leader Stephen Hazell's comments on TVO's May 5, 2008 “The Agenda” when he said we should decide what an optimum population for Canada is? What do you believe an optimum population for Canada is? Are you afraid of covering this uncharted territory because you don't know of a politically correct way to answer that question? Is Mr. Hazell afraid to follow through on his own advice?

source:
www.tvo.org/podcasts/theagenda/audio/TAWSP_Dbt_20080505_0_0_40k.mp3
ecologicalcrash.blogspot.com/2008/05/review-of-tvos-agenda-may-5-2008.html

This is my survey. I will not be confined by your prefabricated questions. The questions I need answering involve your complicity in the overpopulation of Canada, and your focus on inconsequential feel-good concepts of consumption, conservation and recycling. Remember it is our total consumption which is relevant, not our per capita consumption.

Tim Murray,
Quadra Island, BC
Home of the sanctimonious
Sierra Quadra Club
Motto “Take HIM off the island”