Letter-writer Mike Ward, of Duncan B.C., believes he has found its source and offers up a solution to the miasma:
B.C. and Alberta are engaged in a carbon trading scheme of sorts, and it is to no one’s advantage.Also, your mendacious self-congratulatory rhetoric notwithstanding, this is no time to take a victory lap, Catherine.
Alberta sends carbon-rich bitumen to British Columbia, which, when added to the atmosphere, contributes to global warming.
Global warming in turn produces the warmer winters that allow pine beetles to thrive, together with the longer, hotter, drier summers during which B.C.’s disease-stricken forests ignite.
Prevailing winds spread this suffocating carbon smoke throughout both provinces, choking the tourism industry, impacting people’s health, threatening towns and destroying the livelihood of communities dependant on forestry and fishing.
It hurts to think that the new normal for our children may be smoky white summer skies, breathing masks and the eerie light of an orange sun.
Further investment in this perverse carbon trading scheme, such as in the proposed Trans Mountain expansion, defies reason as it can only accelerate global warming and amplify the enormous economic, social and health consequences we are already experiencing.
Clearly, it’s time for change. The cost of our stubborn reliance on fossil fuels has simply become too great a price to pay.
Our leaders are continuing to ignore the painfully obvious, Lorne.
ReplyDeleteAnd it appears they still believe they can get away with it, Owen.
DeleteI too blame the government for their inability or unwillingness to motivate ordinary Canadians on climate change. Yet I don't sense much interest in this looming catastrophe among the party rank and file either. I think this engenders a sense of helplessness among the general population. That relieves the sitting government of any political incentive to act.
ReplyDeleteWhat most troubles me is that we're still fixated on pointless mitigation efforts, such as carbon taxes, but we're doing almost nothing on adaptation strategies such as overhauling and replacing essential infrastructure, constructing new energy grids, preparing for sea level rise and such. Government is abandoning its core responsibilities. That's gross dereliction.
I highly recommend a book entitled Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in The Age of Climate Change, by Ashley Dawson. A sobering read, it examines the present and coming peril and the unpreparedness of cites worldwide to adapt. It also shows how, even where adaptation against sea level rise has succeeded, as in the Netherlands, there are always unwanted or unanticipated consequences.
DeleteI do wonder, Mound, whether things like creating artificial swales, as in New York and now in Toronto, will really make much of a difference anymore, given the increasing power of feedback loops. As well, disaster capitalism, as long as there is a dollar to be made, will always choose disasters and the rebuilding opportunities they represent over adaptation. And we know they are the ones who always have our governments' ears.