I live in Hamilton. I am a…

I live in Hamilton. I am a born Canadian taxpayer. I believe the most serious threat to my family's life is climate change. I learned about this at the University of Waterloo in the 1990's when Hurricane Katrina had not wreaked it's destruction and chaos on our world yet. I studied climate change issues using satellite imagery and attained an "Honours Co-op Master of Environmental Studies" degree. What I've learned during my time a school and in my related work in different environmental science fields, is that climate change is happening much faster all the time and we are running out of time to slow it down or make it's effects manageable in any effective way. We don't know what the worst outcome may look like on Earth but that is what we should be striving to avoid -- in every aspect of our lives.

Our family has divested from oil & gas, protested against new pipelines, taken action at home to try and help to mediate expected worsening floods, droughts and other climate-related disasters. We realize that without the leadership from our government representatives on climate change, our efforts may not help at all in the end. This why we urge our government officials at all levels to take climate change seriously and help those who cannot help themselves.

Canada will be effected in the future when people from other countries all over the world need a place to go. We are a large, mainly empty piece of prime land and everyone is going to want to move here. The small number of immigrants that came from Syria due to war will pale in comparison to the number of homeless climate change victims from low lying places like major cities located along the Eastern coast of North America.

Many issues could take place suddenly with more extreme weather changes too. Currently in the news are articles about how shorebird and reptile populations are in jeopardy and could be wiped out in the near future by new diseases, dramatic weather changes and loss of habitat. These extinctions could occur due to the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Every link in our chain of life is valuable to the rest -- insects, mammals (including us), birds, vegetation, microorganisms, etc. depend on each other to survive. Human beings are no different and our lives are on the line too, especially if we don't even try to help ourselves.

The Conservative Party's cuts of all the green programs Ontario had in place shows a complete ignorance of science in their leaders. Doug Ford is indeed playing with fire. Reduce the bureaucracy and work to reduce waste and lower taxes ... but we ignore climate change at our own peril. It's real, and until Doug Ford understands that, we are all doomed to a difficult if not terrifying future of repeated disasters. Human life can go extinct just like the dinosaurs did -- and there is some evidence that their demise may have been related to changes in their Earth atmosphere due to gases altering it's composition. Sounds familiar.

We need to continue any green initiatives that we had started under any other government, and we have to add to those as quickly as possible. I doubt the Ford government is the right group for the job but I hope they see the light after the next big disaster in Ontario happens. We have to spend money to tame the severity of future climate change-related weather events, and if we don't the bill to clean up will climb much higher all the time. We'd rather pay less now and have a safer future for ourselves and our children.

Be smarter Ontario, go greener! We need a very strong plan to deal with climate change, and we need that immediately. Reversing what had been done (carbon pricing, etc.) should not happen -- we need a leader with enough strength and knowledge to accept there's a problem and work towards solving it. So far, the Premier has only taken action that will make us all suffer one day. Please hear the logic and build a strong and powerful force to reverse the negative effects of climate change. We are all depending on this government because it may be too late when the next one is elected. GO GREEN ALL THE WAY PREMIER FORD, PLEASE! Listen to Mike Schreiner from Guelph please. He has many good green ideas and we need all of them in Ontario more than ever now.