Saving Planet Earth
Re: Want to help save the planet? July 13
The reporter’s characterization of lifestyle changes to mitigate global atmospheric warming as “major, often difficult, sacrifices” is overblown and one-sided.
We will not have to give up driving but we will certainly have to electrify our travel. We may have to join the hundreds of millions of people around the world who are healthy, happy vegans. Long-distance aviation will give way to staycations and teleconferencing. The future will be different … and it can be better.
As 14,000 people are experiencing in central British Columbia now, their lifestyle changes due to wildfires from climate change are certainly difficult and major sacrifices. Trying to ignore climate change and dumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will simply make our current way of life increasingly unstable and costly.
Finally, the researchers found that “high school students rarely … learned about the most effective ways to reduce climate change.” The blame for this knowledge gap rests squarely with the federal government.
For decades Canadian federal governments of various stripes have talked about targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions without developing a comprehensive and credible plan to effect the reductions. An effective climate action plan could be presented to Canadian students in their textbooks … if we had one.
The Trudeau government needs to get way beyond its wimpy carbon tax to develop and implement a real climate action plan (in co-operation with the international community).
Derek Wilson, Port Moody, B. C.
Your article points out that there are many ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Recycling, buying a more efficient car, upgrading light bulbs, buying green energy, switching from an electric car to going car- free, eating a plant- based diet, living car- free, washing clothes in cold water, hang- drying clothes, and avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight — all totalled — will save a total of 9.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide, while having one fewer child will save 58.6 tonnes of CO2 per person per year.
In other words, having one fewer child will have a positive impact on the environment 6.2 times greater than doing all of the aforementioned (which are all still very worthwhile actions).
Thank you for reinforcing what I’ve been saying for over 30 years: Every child is a consuming polluter from before conception to after death.
When will governments around the world accept this and stop encouraging people to make more people?
Jerry Steinberg, founding non- father emeritus of the NO KIDDING! club for childfree couples and singles
We all breathe and eat warm food; many of us drive cars and like to keep warm in winter. And the “population explosion” continues, so I agree that some action should be taken to slow it down. But it is unfair to ask Canadians, who mostly have one to two children per family, to have “fewer children;” two children barely maintain the population. There are countries/cultures where it is customary to have six to eight children per family — that is where the message “have fewer children” should be published.
Dan Sterian, Willowdale, Ont.