Tragically, abusive relationships happen, sometimes at home, sometimes at work. Victims react differently. Some immediately realize that the situation is unhealthy and get away from it. Some stay, hoping for improvement, hoping that the positive will outweigh the negative.
But when ugliness escalates, and the physical and emotional wounds become more serious, almost everyone reaches a point where enough is enough. Then they say, “This has got to stop.”
Abuse doesn’t just affect individuals and doesn’t just pertain to humans. On a much larger scale, the resource extraction industry is, in many cases, abusive to the earth - bulldozing, dynamiting, drilling, shattering, poisoning, trampling, creating desolation.
Some of us realized the unhealthiness of the situation decades ago. During my university years in West Virginia, I was saddened by the damage done by strip mining for coal.
These days, it is the damage done by the fracking process that is pushing people to the point of saying, “Enough is enough. This has got to stop.”
Government leaders in the Yukon, in other provinces and territories, in Ottawa and beyond need to realize that a tipping point has been reached in terms of awareness. The abuse of the Earth, of our life-support system, can no longer be sugar-coated or explained away.
Dianne Homan
Whitehorse