Dear Editor:
An open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
I know that your government is not interested in controlling carbon dioxide emissions because you have no valid strategy to do so. Please don’t quote the BC experience to me because we know that since BC implemented a carbon tax its emissions over the past five of six years have gradually increased.
Anyway this letter is not about a carbon tax, it is about your trip to Iqaluit. You are flying around in an aircraft nick named the “Taj Mahal” which is an old Airbus 310-300 purchased used from Wardair in 1987. It is a relatively large old aircraft which uses significantly more fuel per nautical mile than a modern jet.
Due to poor weather around Iqaluit, which could have been predicted at this time of year, you were forced to land at Happy Valley-Goose Bay, about one hour from Iqaluit. Instead of staying overnight until the weather cleared and then flying in to Iqaluit you chose to fly all the way back to Ottawa only to fly all the way back to Iqaluit the next day.
Only a politician could have chosen to do that. Any businessman interested in completing a business meeting would have stayed overnight at Happy Valley and then taken the red eye flight in to Iqaluit first thing in the morning.
Have you any idea what your contribution to carbon dioxide emissions was for that double trip? Let me tell you. The flight distance to Iqaluit from Ottawa is 1,134 nautical miles (nm). So the double trip took 4,536 nm. My calculation of the total fuel consumed for take off, climb, descent and landing, taking into account heavy weather manoeuvring for your aircraft, is 26,000kg. The amount of carbon dioxide released from jet fuel is 3.15kg per 1kg of jet fuel burned. So your overall double trip cost us 81,900kg of carbon dioxide.
My question to you is, was your trip worth polluting the planet by another 81,900kg of carbon dioxide? I don’t need your answer to this question – after all you are a politician – but I would like you and all the other politicians to ask yourselves that question before you elect to take trips that perhaps could have been replaced by many different types of digital conferencing.
You want to punish me with a carbon tax for driving my little 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and yet you feel free to fly around in your “Taj Mahal”.
Michael Lee,
Salem