Humans are both the problem…

Humans are both the problem and the solution to fighting climate change and global warming.

Our collective need to advance and progress often shunts important issues to the back burner, favouring a certain value or perspective, or worse yet, we ignore these realities if they conflict with our world view. Even if it's ultimately for our own collective good.

This comes in the form of deferment. We will defer certain actions in favour of short-term gains and instant gratification. After all, the generation that comes after us can pick up our mess. How many times are we as a civilization going to prioritize our short term goals and ignore the repercussions in the long run?

Economist have repeatedly shown through various models that although people may object to the idea of paying, they do accept that a carbon tax will be a worthwhile and long term endeavour. There will be upfront costs but paying them sooner will mean we don't have to worry about the inflated costs later.

There is a reason why people invest in RESPs and RRSPs. They know that they won't have the money at the time or the costs in the future will be great, so paying sooner means that when the time comes, we won't have to shoulder the enormous cost of investing in green energy.

I favour proportional carbon taxation. We all share this province and this nation. We should all pay our share to keep it great. We pay now and we can enjoy the benefits later when we have clean air and a modernized economy that is future-ready.

We have one environment. We don't get second chances.