Editor:
We’re 30 years into comprehensive reporting by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the conclusions are not changing. Past warming projections are now our lived reality – with burning forests, towns and homes, choking smoke, sudden death from heat, dwindling water supply and sea life broiling and rotting on the shore. Canada’s breadbasket is reeling with drought and food prices are going up.
Only the urgency of the language is changing as we continue to ignore this evidence. This year we are talking about “code red for humanity” that “must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”
How are our governments responding? Inconceivably, by using our tax dollars to buy pipelines and subsidize LNG development. In short, it seems I am paying for my own demise. Having some intelligence, I must demand that government stop using my taxes in this way. It’s not even my survival I worry about – I’m old – but I am outraged that thanks to government, I am implicated in the ever increasing misery and distress of future generations!
Responsible people have been reducing their carbon footprint, but incremental change is now futile. We need fundamental, transformational change that can only happen with evidence-based, effective government policy and regulations, geared to the well-being of the people rather than big business.
That’s what I’ll be looking for this election. All the other cynical, vote-buying noise that currently dominates the campaign is, from my perspective, just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Liz Neil, Gibsons
