Letter - Personal invective no part in civil debate
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Updated: November 04, 2009 10:35 AM
It’s hard to leave this island without returning to discover surprising events such as the ill-natured “No insight on food policy” letter by Charles Breth on Oct. 21 — taking exception to comments by Elizabeth May about my new book, Trauma Farm, and our need to react to the climate emergency.
Nobody said that small farming is going to change the planet tomorrow, or that it will be easy. This is Mr. Breth’s assumption. What Ms. May is talking about is changing the way we live and think. Living with climate change is not going to be easy either. Then Mr. Breth extols the virtues of the Tar Sands. The largest polluting project on the planet —an uneconomic madness that destroys more than it makes in order to fuel unnaturally created desires for excessive lifestyles. The Tar Sands are not a solution. They’re a symptom of the current sickness that has led to potential catastrophe. Saving the planet and millions of lives isn’t a topic that can be coherently covered in a short letter to the editor, but I did want to note how typical it is that the proponents of continuing our pillaging and looting tend to believe that personal invective is debate. It’s not. Nor is exaggerating and distorting Ms. May’s comments on the healthy benefits of local food. One of the first things we have to do to improve both the human and the world’s condition is learn how to debate with a little common decency and less personal insults.
Brian Brett,
Salt Spring
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