Dear Editor:
I woke up at 1:30 a.m. this morning because of the heat. It’s only (mid-summer) and the forests are already tinder dry. My family lives on Indian Arm where we rely on creek water for our water supply. For the first time in 25 years we are going to run out of water.
With no snowpack this year and the long-range forecast predicting sun, sun, sun until August 18, things are going to get a lot worse. I pray our forests will be spared from forest fire, but can the majestic trees in our rain forests survive six months without rain?
We are not the only ones running out of water. In California they are in dire straits, with 60 per cent of their water supply coming from groundwater.
England is experiencing a heat wave as well. The Arctic ice cap is going to disappear shortly, the main Antarctic ice shelves are calving off and the Greenland ice sheet is melting at a much faster rate than scientists thought possible.
It is time we all started getting really serious about climate change.
Stephen Harper, where do you stand? I suspect I know, based on Canada’s focus on strip mining all of Alberta’s tar sands and running pipelines so we can sell more carbon-intensive oil to Asia. Justin and Mulcair, will you live up to our Kyoto commitment and the numerous commitments that have been made and ignored?
Christy Clark, your predecessor Gordon Campbell made B.C. a global leader in the fight against climate change. If you show leadership on that file I will support you and I strongly suspect that most British Columbians will too. We want this place to remain “the Best Place on Earth.”
Another thing we can all do is keep organics out of landfills.
By diverting organics, we prevent the formation of methane which is 200 times worse than CO2 in our atmosphere. Shifting Vancouver’s cement kilns to biofuels from coal is another simple solution that will result in huge GHG reductions. Start taking action today.
Tony Sperling
North Vancouver
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