As a PhD student in…

As a PhD student in Environmental Studies, and a lifelong resident of Toronto, I am flabbergasted at the blatant anti-environmental mandate of the Ford government. Climate change is the most pressing issue in the world right now, and we are already half a century late in trying address its mitigation, so now we have to brace for impact. Failing to invest in clean energy, and promoting oil, will add fire to the flames of climate change, and in the next decade we will see a huge increase in climate refugees, deforestation, desertification, and major marine, freshwater, and terrestrial biodiversity loss. We should be moving forwards, not backwards, and ending the cap and trade will not only cost billions of dollars, but is so archaic and myopic in plan that I cannot believe it is even being entertained. Ford has failed to address any of these environmental concerns, and has shown himself to have not even the slightest knowledge of how integral sustainability is to both the human and natural environment upon which we are dependent. I cannot in any way support this, and to think that someone who clearly doesn't understand how important renewables are (even in the wake of contemporary global catastrophes with anthropogenic origins) is the Ontario premier is chilling to the core. As comedian John Mulaney so eloquently wrote regarding Trump in the Whitehouse, "Its like a horse is loose in a hospital"-- well now that horse is loose in Ontario, and he is going to seriously endanger the communities whose best interests he is responsible for protecting.