Re: OCP must address reality over climate (Letters, Oct. 1)
First, I must remind your readers that anthropogenic climate change is a scientifically established reality and the most critical existential threat that Sooke and the rest of the world currently face. So the term climate emergency is appropriate.
Letter-writer Andy Neimers points out some serious issues the OCP consultation process should address.
Mr. Neimer’s concerns about subdivisions, development, land use and transportation are standard elements of town planning and will be investigated thoroughly.
What Mr. Neimers does not realize is that all of these issues, and more, will not be obscured by addressing them through a climate lens, but will actually be clarified and refined. We will end up with a better OCP.
I should also mention that Mr. Neimers is attempting to propagate some long-debunked fallacies about climate change.
Although the sun-spot phenomena he mentions are scientific realities, the IPCC and scientific consensus relegate their effects to be no more than 0.1 per cent of the cause of (or solution to) climate change.
Regarding carbon sequestration by Boreal forests, we know that forests both absorb and emit carbon dioxide. Mature forests tend to be carbon neutral. In fact, in recent years, Canada’s managed forests have been a net carbon source rather than a sink.
But even in good times when our forests act as a sink, the atmosphere is a global commons, and the carbon emitted in Canada doesn’t just hang around waiting for a Canadian tree. Atmospheric transport and mixing spread the world’s climate disruptions. There is no get-out-of-jail card.
Everyone who is confused about climate change should seek reliable information. I recommend Climate Change: A Wicked Problem by Frank Incropera.
Kief Elliott
Sooke
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