Dear Editor:
Re: Residents Pack Climate Change Talks, July 20.
The only part of the North Shore News’ article about recent town hall meetings on climate change that I can agree with, unfortunately, is the headline. At Jonathan Wilkinson’s North Vancouver town hall on July 12 I agree it was packed ... at least 250 people I would guess.
The North Vancouver meeting in the photo that I attended was very different from what was described in Burnaby-North Seymour in the article.
At Mr. Wilkinson’s meeting, I was impressed with the range of ideas and depth of thought and discourse that was generated around four main topics: reducing emissions; economy and jobs; innovation and technology; and adaptation and amelioration. Kinder Morgan never came up.
My group was interested in the role that technology and innovation could play in climate change. After sharing ideas in small groups, a spokesperson from every group went to a central mic and offered a brief highlight from their discussion. Everyone had a chance to share multiple times until there were no more people standing at the mic. Virtually every comment was framed as a positive contribution; there were no “heated concerns.”
To wrap up, Mr. Wilkinson summarized the themes that had been raised at the mic and we all headed home “on schedule.” Kudos to the folks who structured and organized the meeting. I think the residents of North Vancouver had a lot of thoughtful feedback that will be shared with government to assist in forming the foundation for a strategy to address the new reality of a changing climate.
Carmen Farrell
North Vancouver
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