Let me begin by saying that…

Let me begin by saying that carbon emissions MUST be reduced immediately. This is no longer a matter of conjecture; there are 6000 scientific studies substantiating the necessity of instituting policies that will ensure such a reduction. It is no longer an argument that solving this situation or working towards a solution is a matter of choosing jobs over the environment. We are past that point.

The current trajectory of global warming leads directly to species annihilation, our species, the human race. This is no longer just about butterflies and polar bears; it is about whether young people and children now living or children not yet born will LIVE at all. In other words, it is a matter of life and death, for all of us. It is as stark as that. Climate change is the leading policy concern of our time; perhaps the only one.

So the question is: what, as our elected government, one not afraid of taking decisive action even against your most ardent supporters, do you plan on doing about this life and death situation?

You have stated that it is your intention to cancel the cap and trade programme. If that is the case, and it appears to be, it also means that you are prepared to pay, from taxes that could be employed for other programmes, the fees for contract cancellation. It appears you are prepared to sacrifice jobs that could be created in green industries. It appears that you are prepared to sacrifice revenues from the cap and trade programme that would have been employed in the creation of new infrastructure and energy saving initiatives. I do not want my taxes wasted in paying off cancelled contracts, I want my taxes used efficiently to neutralize this life or death crisis.

So what are you going to do? Do you know? Or is this all about doing nothing while the home, that is our biosphere, burns.

Cap and trade may not be perfect but it is a vehicle, if a flawed vehicle, for reducing our carbon fuel use, use which has been proved to be harming our planet home. Most of the elements of climate change are caused by the heating we use for our buildings and the fuel we use in our transportation. How are we going to reduce our carbon footprint in these areas? Again, do you know? We are a northern country , but then so is Norway, a jurisdiction that uses much less carbon per capita than do we. Are we incapable of meeting their targets with action?

I am not sure I favour the cap and trade programme as it is presently constituted but it is better than nothing for doing what we needed to do YESTERDAY - reduce our carbon footprint. We need to put something in place, we need to deal with this and to start to deal with it QUICKLY. I don't see where the Ontario government is going with this, but I suspect that the answer is not the establishment of another new initiative but DOING NOTHING. I am afraid, and not I believe without proof, that empirical knowledge will be discarded, to our peril, because learning and research have come to be associated not with objective scientific examination but with 'elites' .

If that is the case, it is not good enough. We need to act in line with scientific evidence and if we do not, our government is making the choice for us and for future generations. Our government is choosing, disease, poverty, starvation and ultimately death for our children.

I repeat, THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. ACT to solve the crisis that presents itself. ACT in accordance with scientific principles. ACT, in accordance with psychological realities to encourage and assist people in making changes that will rendet the world more ecologically secure. LEAD into the future to save our people. We cannot go back to the past. LEAD.