Things will have to change

Dear Editor,

Thanks for your editorial on Sunday Mata’afa, tying cyclones in the Pacific to the big talk and speeches in New York. 

All this climate change talk and signings are so interesting. 

I was listening to an environmentalist in Canada speak on what it would mean for Canada to meet their targets. He suggested it would mean that every carbon burning vehicle on the road currently in Canada would have to be removed. 

This is so interesting because if that is true why is Canada still extracting fossil fuels, discussing pipelines, still so reliant on gas and oil for its GDP, to name just a few issues that make it problematic for Canada to reach its targets and limit climate warming to 1.5 degrees that is needed for human survival within the next few decades. 

Canada also has two levels of governments, federal and provincial. Three provinces economies are very dependent on oil and are viciously opposed to any reduction in oil production, although they argue they have put strict cap and trade measures and carbon taxes in place to offset environmental destruction. They resist the federal government’s plans to reduce environmental destruction at every turn. 

Some countries are committing to getting rid of all fossil fuel burning cars off their roads by 2025. I think both Canada and Samoa need to commit to this ambitious policy as well. I will send my letters to PM Justin Trudeau. 

All in all I think the global community has a long way to go. In the U.S there are still large groups of self interested politicians who are owned by oil producing money people, who to this day, deny there is a connection between burning fossil fuels and the changes we see in the climate. 

I seriously hope we can all start to see that the path we are on is the path to destruction and not just keep talking about how we need to change our reliance on fossil fuels but actually do very little to change. 

One of the stupidest arguments I have heard in Canada thus far, is we need to continue extracting this filthy thing called bitumen from the Alberta tar sands so that we have money to pay for the transition to green energy. 

One of the stupidest comments I’ve heard coming from a republican in the U.S, is that if they stop producing oil, poor people in poor countries will become poorer. This person thinks that it is better to keep extracting oil and kill people in poor countries with climate disasters than to stop producing oil for profit. 

And then there is China and Russia. I think the politicians who promote these ridiculous arguments solely to justify their out of control consumption and greed should be charged and go on trial in the Hague and then go to jail for murder. 

I’m so grateful that Cyclone Amos did not cause more damage. I sat by my computer watching its path for two days. Things will have to change.

Wendy Wonder

Canada

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