To the Editor,
When questioned about how the Ontario provincial government’s response to climate change was meeting its targets, Premier Ford recently answered that he was taking a different approach. He was creating jobs for the people. To that, I say, there are no jobs on a dead planet. The jobs that are needed are in the building of affordable, but sustainable homes, retrofitting of homes and businesses to improve their energy efficiency, and in the renewable energy sector; not building new highways over agricultural lands and wetlands.
In Haliburton County, when the Gull River hasn’t breached its banks, the impacts of climate change are mainly felt in the bumps and holes in the roads from frequent freeze thaw cycles. Certainly not the life-threatening impacts that are being felt in India where temperatures reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit this week. Or in the Arctic where melting permafrost is causing homes to collapse. Or heat domes in the west that caused forest fires so vast that we could see the smoke in Haliburton last summer.
Climate scientists across the globe agree that we have a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity left to prevent our climate from spinning completely out of control. Ontario is responsible for about 22 per cent of Canada’s GHG emissions. If Ontario is saddled with our current government’s climate plan, not only will Ontario fail to meet its target but so will the entire country. The next four years can’t be wasted on a woefully inadequate climate plan.
The government that Ontarians elect on June 2 must not be shortsighted.
Susan Hay,
Haliburton