Dear Editor,
Recent letters extol the science community for recommendations of how to act during the COVID-19 pandemic. The writers equate the COVID expenditures with the availability of funding for climate action. This thinking will crush people with trillions of taxpayer funded debt. A debt to be paid by our children and beyond their children.
Science is the observation and data collection about a problem to arrive at the appropriate solution. All other data points to further solutions about the same problem. To whom do people listen? The writer suggests the science of COVID must be followed and so must we follow the science of climate change.
Let me be clear: innovation and invention will solve the problems that mankind faces. Science must be useful and not destructive or confusing, because interpretation of data can lead in many directions. Science’s responsibility to mankind cannot come through intimidations by a few who spawn fixes that sound noble enough. Media repetition becomes public repetition, which may not be the truthful path to follow.
Weather is cyclical and numerous weather stations overproduce data compared to a century ago. Green plants need to be replaced on a huge scale for carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange. Wildfires are corralled, not fought down like they were forty years ago. People are evacuated and property is saved more than the fire suppression effort. Small fish like shrimp and herring needs renewal for greater food fish growth. Population growth is also a burgeoning problem. Demanding expenditure for the cause is not a reason to create fear in people about climate.
What is “desirable” needs to be weighed carefully with what is practical and beneficial for this world. Crushing debt from COVID and climate are not the answer the writers suggest.
Bruce Hornidge,
Port Alberni
