Another day, another eyebrow-raising video clip from the past that B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad has to defend or avoid talking about.

Tuesday featured a video interview from last year in which he discussed his interpretation of the motive behind part of the climate-change fighting campaign. He said it stems from an “anti-human” or “anti-civilization” outlook aimed at “reducing the world population.”

He is specifically concerned about efforts to reduce use of nitrogen-based fertilizer, which he said contributes to 40 per cent of the world’s food supply. Curbing that would lead to a crisis where huge numbers of people would “starve,” he said.

A few days earlier, the NDP latched onto a PressProgress report of his concerns about efforts to produce insect protein on a large scale, where he is quoted as saying at a conference: “We should not be expecting our kids to eat bugs.”

In both cases there is a legitimate issue behind Rustad’s reactions. Insect protein production is well underway, in Canada and elsewhere, and is widely covered in media. Nitrogen fertilizer is widely flagged as a climate-change concern, and there’s a federal plan to........

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