December 17, 2021

Dear Editor

Christmas - a time for hope and renewal!

On December 2, 2006, more than 300 people from Indigenous Nations and nine countries, including Canada, attended the Indigenous World Uranium Summit at Window Rock Navajo Nation in Arizona.

Calling for a ban on uranium mining, processing, enrichment, fuel use, and weapons testing and deployment, and nuclear waste dumping on Indigenous Lands, the participants passed the Declaration of the Indigenous World Uranium Summit, asserting that nuclear power - the primary use for uranium - is not a solution to global warming.

http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=2901&blz=1)

Then, on December 13, MLA Peter Prebble, Secretary for Renewable Energy Development and Conservation, presented his first report to Premier Calvert which outlines the opportunities for Saskatchewan to achieve its goal of becoming a North American leader in safe, renewable energy sources and conservation. .didn't see the "N" word (N for Nuclear) anywhere, of course!

(http://www.cicorp.sk.ca/energy-development-conservation/ren-ene-dev-con-report.pdf)

Finally, on December 14, the Pembina Institute released its report, "Nuclear Power No Solution to Climate Change". It confirms that, in light of the generation of large amounts of radioactive and hazardous wastes at each stage of the nuclear energy production process, the severe impacts on surface and groundwater water quality through the discharge of radioactive and toxic pollutants, and the release to the air of smog- and acid rain-producing, radioactive and hazardous pollutants, in addition to greenhouse gases, nuclear power offers no solution to the climate change crisis.

(http://www.pembina.org/pubs/doc.php?id=1346)

Do we dare hope that our decision-makers will use this unique and exciting opportunity to call a halt to the greed and madness driving the expansion of uranium mining across beautiful northern Saskatchewan?

Or, do we watch it become a contaminated environmental wasteland, unfit for any form of life for hundreds of thousands of years?

Which will it be?

Elaine Hughes

Archerwill, SK