Dear Editor,
I looked out the window and the sky was yellow. Step outside to get into the car and the smell of smoke was inescapable. Sports events cancelled, recess kept indoors. Endless prescriptions for inhalers. Millions of people in Canada and the US affected by air pollution warnings. This is where forty years of denial and delay on climate change have gotten us. Over 3.3 million hectares of forests burned so far this year against a ten-year average of 254,000 hectares. And we are not even in summer. Yet Premier Ford is unable to acknowledge the link between climate change and the forest fires that have affected so many.
We are addicted to fossil fuels, and this addiction poses a real threat to current and future generations. A threat to my 3-year-old daughter, to your children and grandchildren. We know we need to break our addiction to fossil fuels, and we have the tools to be able to do so. Yet instead of investing in cheap and clean renewable energy, Premier Ford ploughs ahead with his plan to ramp up dirty, polluting, expensive fossil gas generation, adding to the pollution that causes more than 7,000 premature deaths a year in Ontario and pumping more climate-wrecking carbon into the atmosphere.
Only Mike Schreiner and the Ontario Greens have a credible plan to crush climate pollution, to protect our farmlands, wetlands, and woodlands. To build affordable, caring, connected communities where people want to live. To ensure we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and food to eat.
Steve Gabell
