To the Editor,
The most recent IPCC report states that we have only 12 years to make the necessary greenhouse gas reductions to avert climate chaos, but still our governments for the most part, ignore the impending disaster. Like many who have been keeping abreast of the science and current events (storms, droughts, wildfires, insect infestations) concerning climate change, I have become weary and depressed with the lack of action of our governments and the continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
But on Feb. 22, I received an e-mail which made me imagine what the war weary British people must have felt like when it was announced that the Americans had finally entered the Second World War. The e-mail was from an organization called 350.org and it said that a summit of hundreds of young people had just wrapped up a meeting in Ottawa and that they were launching a campaign to promote a Green New Deal for Canada in preparation for the federal election in October.
The significance of this announcement is not only that the Green New Deal offers a prescription for solving the climate crisis but that this time it is going to be promoted by a well organized youth element in our country. Our young people are on fire to save their future.
As 15-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden recently told the UN, “…we have not come here to beg world leaders to care for our future, they have ignored us in the past…we have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not…”
The Green New Deal offers hope to young people and others who recognize the threat to their future from climate chaos. It offers hope to workers in the fossil fuel and other carbon based industries who need to be assured of jobs in a just transition to a sustainable economy. It offers hope to indigenous people who have been seeking economic and cultural security.
It offers hope to a world which is looking for nations who are ready to lead by example in the war against climate catastrophe. Please visit https://act.350.org/signup/GND-canada for details on how you can lend your support to this movement to secure our future.
John Mayba,
Port Alberni