You’d be forgiven if you thought this title was plucked from the news a decade ago. The sadder reality is that it’s the recent response of 47 legal, environmental, health, Indigenous and faith groups who said as much in an open letter to Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Jonathan Wilkinson (https://bit.ly/2ZOERPD). The letter addresses the prospect of a major expansion by an Alberta-based thermal coal mine that wants to sell even more of its climate-compromising product into Asian markets… during a climate emergency.

I know… Coal? Are you serious?

But here’s the deal: Coalspur’s Vista Mine near Hinton, Alta. (outside Jasper National Park), already the country’s largest such operation, is trying to finagle an even larger expansion than the one it originally proposed to federal authorities—including a previously undisclosed underground mine. Through technical and legal manoeuvring, the project has so far managed to evade environmental assessment despite the fact, according to EcoJustice, that “Canada’s current environmental laws would require an assessment for a new mine even one eighth Vista’s proposed expansion size.”

Source: ECOLOGIC: Coal? Are you serious? – Pique Newsmagazine