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EDITORIAL: Global warning

City of North Vancouver council made headlines around the country this week when it became the first municipality in Canada to mandate climate change warning labels on gas pumps – much like the ones that have emblazoned cigarette packages for decades

City of North Vancouver council made headlines around the country this week when it became the first municipality in Canada to mandate climate change warning labels on gas pumps – much like the ones that have emblazoned cigarette packages for decades.

The reaction on social media, and the fountainheads of knowledge that are internet comment sections, was swift and mostly harsh.

What clowns these West Coasters are. Instead of actually doing something about climate change, they’re just sending us all on a guilt trip.

Though it irks a great many, the city has consciously put together an official community plan that will mean fewer people having to get into a vehicle in order to get to work, the store or soccer pitch.

The warning labels will be a reminder that we very much are in the driver’s seat of climate change. About a quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions come from our transportation sector. That’s second only to the production of oil and gas.

If you look at the lineup of vehicles on the Cut or Lions Gate Bridge on-ramps, you’d get the idea that people are allergic to carpooling. An astounding number of those vehicles are SUVs with eight-cylinder engines idling away.

When given the opportunity to invest in our transit system this spring, 60 per cent of us said no.

These are choices we make and choices have consequences, like putting species at risk, raising sea levels and more violent storms, like ones we’re still cleaning up from.

And more than rubbing our noses in it, these labels will offer constructive ideas on how we can actually reduce our carbon output.

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