Climate change is the…

Climate change is the largest problem to have ever faced the human race. It is a dire existential threat which requires urgent and drastic action. The plant is changing. Humans are causing this. We are currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event to ever happen on our planet. Life has existed on earth for at least 3.5 billion years and there have only been five mass extinctions prior to the one humans are currently causing. Think about that... only five mass extinctions over the course of 3.5 BILLION years... until we come along and cause another. This should be a wake-up call! Humans are not outside of nature and the natural world. We are a part of it - and cannot survive without it.

Just this passed week, the Secretary General of the United Nations called climate change a "direct existential threat" to humanity - meaning that it threatens our current way of life and survival. He warned that we are in immediate risk of passing a point of no return if we do not, as a species, drastically alter course by 2020. It is currently September 2018 - that is not a lot of time. And, lets not forget, this is the chief of the UN speaking - not some "radical left-wing". If the chief of the entire United Nations is not to be taken heed of, I don't know who is.

To the crux of the matter. In order to prevent this greatest of existential threats, we need radical change to our social, political, and economic systems - and we need it fast. But, alas, this is clearly not going to happen under a Doug Ford government, nor any party I am currently aware of (anywhere in the world) which has any serious hope of winning an election. But however, that does not mean that the cap and trade system (no, it's not a "carbon tax") which the Liberal government implemented is worthless. It is better than nothing. The gases (namely carbon dioxide) which we are releasing into the atmosphere will linger and cause lasting change for many thousands of years. The less we put in now, the better. Projections (including that of the UN) are estimating up to 250 million refugees caused by climate change by the year 2050, and up to a billion by 2100. These are serious numbers. An influx of about 10 million refugees in recent years has caused a worldwide "crisis" (if 10 million was enough to cause a crisis, how will our societies possibly survive 250 million, let alone 1 billion?). In addition to natural disasters, places on the planet becoming uninhabitable due to increasing temperatures and rising sea levels, droughts, food chain failures, increased war and conflict, and the list goes on - the future is currently looking like a very bad place to be. And this is not the far future, anyone who is about 20 now will only be about 50 in 2050, and I am presuming that they wish for a good, prosperous, and happy life. Climate change will cause mass death (from starvation, conflict, drought, refugees, etc.), any government who is complicit in taking no action to solve the problem or, even worse, takes action which exacerbates the problem (often for some short term so called "economic gain"), is complicit in mass death. Therefore, I say to you, Doug Ford, and all members of the legislature: if you go through with your plan to remove the cap and trade system, you are complicit in, and indeed you are an agent of, mass death. Are you seriously willing to do all of this for some imagined economic growth (our economy has been doing very well with the cap and trade system in place). Do you really want that on your conscience. And, even if you are some being of great evil, and wish mass death to be on your conscience, think about your children, your friends, your family, your constituents, and every single person, animal, and living being on this planet. Just think about that. Even you, Doug Ford, are surely not that evil.

-- Yours truly, an extremely concerned citizen

P.S. If you are that evil, and all you care about is money - read the literature, the studies show that it is significantly cheaper to solve climate change before it gets really bad as opposed to solving it once it gets really bad. It will have to be dealt with at some point (if not just for the fact that we will run out of oil) or we will literally go extinct. Take the cheaper option, solve the problem now, grow the economy with clean energy, and (as bonus points) avoid an existential crises in the process :)