Editor,
Kudos to Laura Sacks of Castlegar for standing up to Tom Fletcher and responding to his opinion piece of Feb. 22. Like Laura, I found Mr. Fletcher’s views on climate change to be very unsettling, but I did nothing about it. Laura took action immediately and fired off a well-informed letter, which I’m assuming was printed in all newspapers published by Black Press, papers through which Tom Fletcher regularly spreads his partisan views.
Mr. Fletcher tells readers that human-generated CO2 being the cause of climate change is simply “propaganda” and that Canada’s efforts to do its part in the global effort to combat climate change don’t matter “a damn bit” because the Paris agreement allows the U. S., China and India, the “top three greenhouse gas emitters” to continue increasing emissions until 2030. This is an old argument that most countries, including Canada, have moved beyond. This is not the time to say that because, as Mr. Fletcher puts it, “Donald Trump will soon pull out of the toothless Paris accord and end Obama’s war on coal” Canada (and B.C.) should cease all efforts to reduce carbon emissions. With the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Canada is being viewed more and more as a leader by other countries around the world. We need to set a good example when it comes to climate change.
As for “our American-financed protest industry”, Mr. Fletcher needs to accept the fact that we all live on the same planet and that climate change is a global crisis which knows no boundaries. We’re all in this together, something most people understand.
June WoodVanderhoof, B. C.