We recently received a questionnaire from our federal representative, MP Mel Arnold, asking us how much we are prepared to pay in carbon taxes.
He hopes to use our answers against the governing party and scupper their main solution to climate change. Really, the decent question would have been “how much is your health worth?” or “what is the value of your children’s future?”
Last summer’s “once-in-a-lifetime” events have repeated themselves again this year, at great cost to our health. The impact of smoke on the economy will eventually be estimated in the billions yet again. The way we live and vote has increased the severity and duration of the wildfire season. Our love of pickup trucks, flights to winter sun, and climate-change-denying federal representatives has set us up for some very tough summers ahead if we don’t change course.
Our day of reckoning has arrived, and Mr. Arnold has met it with a play to the greedy side of us all rather than any sort of acceptance or suggestion of solutions.
Luckily, it’s not too late for us to avoid a totally bleak future for our children. Meeting the challenge of climate change will leave us a stronger, more equal society. We don’t have the time to waste on Mr. Arnold’s denial or failure to lead. We have to change our consumer habits and recognize when we are being misled. We have to vote Mr. Arnold out in 2019.
Owen Madden
