The the editor;
We’ve done well on COVID, we must do the same on climate change
Well done Bonnie Henry! Well done B.C. Provincial Government! Well done Theresa Tam and even the federal Liberals! Especially well done most of us regular citizens!
Our leaders listened to the science and the experts, accepted the truth and gave us good advice that we followed, putting the lid on COVID-19, which otherwise would almost certainly have been a social, medical and economic apocalypse across our entire country.
Thanks to the leaders of Russia, Brazil, and the USA all of whom are deniers of science, ignorers of experts and distorters of truth, their citizens and many of the citizens of the developing world are paying a heavy price for their profound ignorance and disregard.
We have proven on a national and largely international scale that we humans can mobilize vast efforts to combat and avert an impending global disaster. Perhaps we can do the same for climate change; listen to the science and the experts and accept the truth of climate change and its potential for apocalypse-like impacts on our children and grandchildren. This would mean cancelling all new pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure expansion projects while putting vast efforts into transitioning to a clean, renewable energy future, plus making big changes in the way we all live, spend, work and travel. It would also mean that we truly do care about the future we create for those depending on us.
Or we can go back to business as usual and do so with a high degree of certainty, based on decades of research and science, that we will be serving up a future for our offspring on a planet that is likely to be “well done”. (NOAA stating in April that 2020 is on track to be the warmest year on record.)
David Slade,
Cobble Hill, B.C.
