From CO2 to OC2

The Editor,

In response to our political leaders in this election, Paula Halpin’s article in The Low Down, “Candidates need to respond to planetary Code Red” (Sept. 25 edition), will likely remain an outcry into the night. Her focus on our youth, “how much they fear for their future,” brings to mind a moment 44 years ago – the year our first son was born – when Dr. David Fisher, a local glaciologist, pointed out to us how in 1909 a French scientist ferreted out C02 as the crucial climate crisis element, evidenced with a few equations that can be written on the back of an envelope. Paula points to three immediate actions – halting all fossil fuel expansion projects, investing massively in a green economy, giving frontline and Indigenous communities decision-making power. These three definitely provide us with an important measure of our politicians in their imputed commitment and reliability, and more so, of their ability, honesty, or intellect to initiate effective actions. But current telling measures from recent governments tell us the opposite: at one end of this troupe, Liberals recently touting their investment of billions of dollars into oil pipelines; at the other end, the guarded action of the previous Conservative government in emptying an entire National Library room of irreplaceable climate science research and trucking these journals, books, and papers off to a local dump.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the rising mercury in our thermometers, I suspect the numbers they more likely count are the number of votes they foresee in the short run and, in subsequent days, the rising dollars in their corporate shares. So I do congratulate The Low Down for keeping its focus on what should be priority number one — namely OC2, our climate crisis.

Kevin Morris

Venosta, QC