All aboard the climate change bandwagon!

Whistler has just sent a demand letter to a major Alberta oil company seeking compensation for the extra costs incurred by the municipality because of climate change. Now that is a bandwagon I can climb aboard!-here’s a draft of my own demand letter to Big Oil:

TO: nasty, polluting, nakedly for-profit oil company:

Your Nastiness:

Upon a recent review of the family budget I have come to the inescapable conclusion that we are spending more,  indeed much more, as a direct result of climate change. For reasons more fully elucidated in the letter sent to you by the Resort Municipality of Whistler, I’m convinced this is your fault, and I demand compensation.

Just last week I had to shell out $500 for a heavy duty Arcteryx Gore-Tex jacket. It’s an outrageous price to pay for a raincoat I know, but what are you supposed to do if you live in BC? All this rain is your fault, so I am enclosing the sales receipt for reimbursement.

A few years ago I had to rebuild the bridge that crosses the stream flowing through our backyard, to raise the bridge deck above the higher water level that now seems to be the norm. I didn’t realize it at the time, so I didn’t keep the receipts from the hardware store, but I now realize that clearly the higher stream-flow is a result of climate change, and must be your fault, so please add $1,000 to the tab.

Now I suspect that all our higher grocery costs are probably climate change related as well, but I’m not sure how to do the math to calculate our loss, so I’ll let you off the hook for those costs, but not for the huge increases in our vacation budget.

Here’s the thing, due to climate change, BC is pretty well uninhabitable during the monsoon season, even with expensive heavy-duty Gore-Tex. This leaves us with no choice but to take refuge someplace warmer and drier, with sandy beaches, blue skies and cocktails with little umbrellas in them. (we would like to leave soon so please, don’t send our cheque via Canada Post- we will send a courier)

Personally I was in favor of either Hawaii or Palm Springs, since I’ve heard from the highest authority that climate change doesn’t exist in the USA, but my wife refuses to set foot in that country until ‘you know who’ is no longer in charge, so we have decided on Mexico instead. Frankly, you are getting off lightly, since the peso offers much better value than the US dollar right now, so let’s just peg the cost of a jaunt to Mexico at $15,000, and let’s get ‘er done.

Now I know you’ll refer my letter to your legal department, who will probably tell you there is no legal justification for my demand, but I submit to you that, since it is beyond dispute that this climate change thing is all your fault, you need to salve your moral conscience by sending us on a winter vacation. It’s the right thing to do.