The Editor:

I would like to say to each reader of Nation Valley News that this federal election is about your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. Despite your party loyalties and how you would never vote for any other party, you have to think about your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and their future. Global warming (or climate change as it has been re-labelled in the last few years in an attempt to make it seem less threatening) is the biggest issue facing Canadians and all the people of the Earth. Global warming is a scientifically proven phenomenon that is happening now and will only get worse. And who will suffer its effects? Not you — but your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.

You cannot vote for a party that does not take the science seriously. We have tens of thousands of scientists around the world who have studied this phenomenon who have come to the conclusion that global warming is happening. I am amazed at people who say things like, “Oh, the Earth’s axis is just shifting” or “This is just natural” — what’s amazing is that those people don’t think that the scientists might have already considered those things! They’ve investigated these possibilities of axis shifting or it being natural, but they’ve come to the conclusion, with all of their years of study, with the fact that they have to get all of their physics and chemistry and math checked by peer-reviewed journals and other independent sources, that it IS happening. Let us be clear: nobody wants this to be happening and there is no conspiracy.

The same science that can build Ford F-150s and find and extract petroleum from the ocean floor is the same science that tells us that if we keep burning fossil fuels and pumping carbon into the atmosphere that the world will heat up to the point where human life will no longer be possible. You cannot just accept science when it gives you things you like and disregard it when it gives you bad news. Nor can you ignore the evidence of your own senses and of your life experience. Whether it is farmers speaking about how the ground doesn’t freeze in the winter like it used to, or winter snowfalls almost invariably being followed by meltings, which did not used to be the case, or the declining number of birds and insects, or the arrival of invasive species from farther south in North America: it is clear that major environmental changes are happening. Scientists did first check if all these things were natural changes, but they have concluded that the pace at which this is happening is unnatural and man-made; changes that in Earth’s geological past took thousands and even millions of years to occur are now happening within decades.

Global warming is in fact what is happening and whether you like it or not, you have to realize that your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren’s future is in deadly peril. You need to act for them now. You need to vote for a party that will do something about this crisis, and will save the world for your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.

Patrick Burger

Lunenburg, South Stormont

Member of the Green Party of Canada

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