Many emitters
Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Enjoy the outdoors,’ Jan. 13.
Of course, no “single group” is the sole cause of climate change. We’re all responsible (or should that be irresponsible?)
Pleasure snowmobiling as a means of enjoying the great outdoors does, however, provide a good example of how our collective mindsets must alter before CO2 and other noxious emissions will ever start to reduce.
Here’s another example: I took my dog to the vet to get her three-year rabies shot. Naturally, we walked along the trail to my local vet. COVID meant curbside vet service only, so when I arrived I was asked where I had parked. The assistant was amazed when she learned that I had actually walked the 6km with my dog! I was asked to just stand outside and wait.
I did so and I watched all the other dog owners roll into the vet’s car park in their cars and trucks and then just sit there, with their engines running to keep the fragile occupants toasty and warm, while their pets were being treated, each one idling their engines for around 20 to 25 minutes.
So now I guess I’ll be accused of blaming another “single group” (car driving pet owners?) for the climate change crisis.
No, I don’t believe recreational snowmobiling is the sole cause of the environmental crisis on this planet – just one more unnecessary and unhealthy polluting waste. The fact is we are all burning far too much fossil fuel for no good reason and it seems many are too blind to realize what we are doing.
By the way, I must agree with the sentiments of another writer to your page (Climate alarmism, Jan 13). Electric vehicles (EV) will certainly not provide the solution. Lithium production is indeed far too problematic.
Also, I was surprised and saddened when someone on a local environmental committee recently voiced a hope that two-stroke snowmobiles would eventually be replaced with EV snowmobiles! Please; how about just getting outdoors and hiking the trails to enjoy our winter wonderland?
Roy Pegg,
Orton
‘Dangerous’
Dear Editor:
Kudos to Chris Daponte, Dave Adsett and the always positive Kelly Waterhouse for essentially pointing out the same thing: we should not get angry with one another because everyone’s disgusted with COVID-19 overwhelming our lives.
But what can be done to convince elected officials (people who are making decisions about how to spend our money) that their uninformed/misinformed attitudes towards the pandemic are not only incorrect but downright dangerous? Voicing and spreading so many outrageously wrong ideas is tantamount to encouraging life-threatening behaviours.
Anti-vaxxers are also dangerous. They talk about their freedoms but they’re decidedly curtailing mine and that of hundreds of thousands of others. How can we convince them to simply go home, shut up and stay home until COVID-19 goes away?
All ideas welcomed!
Helen Marucci,
Fergus
What about smoking?
Dear Editor:
The two opinion pieces last week by Dave Adsett and Chris Daponte seemed to be quite contrasted, even though they talked of the same subject of COVID-19.
Adsett’s title of “A gentle reminder” held true through his editorial. He stated clearly his position on vaccination, masks, etc. He also acknowledged “it’s a free world still, despite the naysayers and those who are incapable of respecting other people’s choices” and “scolding and fanning the flames hasn’t moved that needle much.”
He sums up his thoughts with “Consider that a gentle reminder to not allow differences of opinion to get in the way of being good neighbours and friends.”
Unfortunately, Daponte appeared to take the route of “scolding and fanning the flames.” His theme is his concern with the “dismissing and downplaying of deaths.” He then states that “If your go-to argument on anything related to COVID-19 is that not too many people die from it, you may not be a very good person.” Well, that phrase caught my eye. Sure, we should all be concerned with the death of others no matter what the cause, but have we become so focused on COVID that nothing else seems to matter?
I was picking up the usual empty Tim Hortons cups and cigarette packs on my walk on our road the other day and the warning label read, “Smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature death in Canada. About 100 people die from tobacco use each day.” That would be over 36,000 each year. Sadly, I found an article from the Canadian Cancer Society that states in Canada, more than 45,000 die each year accounting, for one in five of all deaths or 18.4%. The economic costs stated were staggering at $6.5 billion in direct health costs and $16.2 billion in total economic costs. The Lancet and The Lancet Public Health article ( www.healthdata.org) states that in 2019, nearly 8 million smoking related deaths occurred globally.
I bring this up not to minimize COVID deaths but to bring into perspective that we should be thankful that the deaths from COVID in Canada are low compared to other parts of the world. Of course the tragedy of these deaths should never be taken lightly but slinging mud and name calling rarely has a positive effect.
I see that there are questionable individuals on both sides of the COVID issue but the struggle of self-inflicted addictions and far too common fatal diseases on top of what has happened with Covid should make us all pause before we pass judgment on others.
Michael Thorp,
Mount Forest
Changes long overdue
Dear Editor:
The opinion of authority is not enough for one to agree to the bounds in which they are expected to exist. The patriarchal system is unjust, it promotes a dated ideology that advantages the already advantaged.
The state does not protect those in need of protection, does not aid those in need of aid, does not manage what needs to be managed and does not fight the important fights. My dispute of the mess that is the Western world’s political impediments is indefinite. I believe that the government is stuck in the past. Governments are corrupt, this is true, power gets abused, the wrong people are punished, justice does not always get served. But for that, I fail to produce a solution.
What I can say is that the patriarchy and the social contracts that exist within our society have not evolved at the same pace as us. The concerns about the suspension of humankind’s right to liberty, privacy and security stem from the wrongdoings of an outdated government.
There was a time for subtle change, that time has passed. We need considerable adjustments made to our state that benefit all of society. The Canadian constitution is nearly two centuries old, the American constitution nearly three. Think about just how much is different then versus now, how much society has advanced, revised, innovated, diversified and transformed.
The government is not evil, that is not what I am arguing. We simply live in a world where leaders are restricted to legislation that no longer aligns with present day civilization. Changes are necessary, they were necessary decades ago.
It is up to us to hold our leaders accountable for these needs, and to help realign sovereignty with the demands of today’s world.
Charlotte Berry,
11th Grade, CWDHS,
Centre Wellington
‘Abandonment’
Dear Editor:
An open Letter to the membership of the Upper Grand District School Board and its trustees.
The way this school board has arranged this temporary home schooling for in-class students – and I won’t call it temporary “remote learning,” because it is nothing of the sort – is nothing short of a complete disgrace and total abandonment of students.
To leave the students entirely to their own devices and rely 100% on parents to supervise their work, help them with the subject matter, grade it, and submit it for attendance credit is a complete cop-out and dereliction of the duty to education.
This appears to be the only alternative to in-class students with immuno-compromised parents who can – forgive me – ill-afford to accept the severe risk in-class learning represents to their health through this latest wave of the pandemic.
This immoral and irresponsible approach is a slap in the face of taxpayers, parents and students – and especially the elderly and vulnerable.
With the abandonment of testing, reporting and quarantining of infectious staff and students, the immune-compromised and otherwise most vulnerable have been relegated to being simply considered collateral damage and acceptable casualties of providing our children with a basic education.
Gandhi once said, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
How low we have sunk as a society! I am absolutely appalled – as we all should be.
Provision should be made for these students to temporarily join the synchronous learning classrooms that are so well run and organized until it is reasonably safe for them to return to in-class learning.
Michael and Wendy Kurylowicz,
Rockwood
Doesn’t like vax, tests
Dear Editor:
RE: Board to ask province to add COVID-19 to immunization act, Jan. 13.
UGDSB chair Linda Busuttil presented a motion to ask the province to add COVID-19 to the list of designated diseases under the Immunization of School Pupils Act.
The article states the act
“applies to all students who attend private or public elementary and secondary schools, requires that all children under the age of 18 registered in school in Ontario must be immunized, or in the process of becoming immunized.” This statement is not entirely truth.
The Immunization of School Pupils Act states medical, conscience or religious belief exemptions are in place. COVID-19 is not on the list as it is not finished safety and efficacy trials until 2023.
I find Busuttil’s statement that “What we know is that, before the symptoms come is when the transmissibility happens,” incredulous.
A rhetorical question is, “Didn’t we previously call an asymptomatic person healthy?”
The availability of the internet allows information sources at my fingertips. No need to wait for the weekly! I can browse science paper reviews as they are published for reports such as the adverse effects from the COVID-19 injection, its efficacy or the unreliability of rapid testing.
Mental and financial stress in homes, hours of lost learning for students, siblings, the decreased income and juggling acts for caregivers along with any isolation has caused greater harm, mentally and physically, than the COVID-19 risks in children.
There is a risk/benefit established for all drugs before they are approved. This risk/benefit information regarding COVID-19 is very well documented. I ask that for this newspaper provide a balanced COVID narrative to allow informed consent to be formed.
The $3- to $4-million dollar UGDSB funding request for rapid antigen tests needs to be redirected.
Joyce Sloat,
Mapleton
*Editor’s note: The vast majority of medical experts agree that the risks associated with contracting COVID far outweigh any risks associated with getting vaccinated. Most also agree that rapid tests, while not as reliable as PCR tests, can help reduce viral spread if used correctly and in tandem with other public health measures.
Timeless poetry
Dear Editor:
While reading Robbie Burns’ poems in preparation for Robbie Burns Day on Jan. 25, I came across the poem A Prayer, Under the Pressure of violent Anguish, which fits our present moment even though it was written in 1781, 241 years ago.
Burns commented on the poem three years after writing it, “There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters … My body too was attacked by that most dreadful distemper, a confirmed melancholy: in this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow tree, except in some lucid intervals, in which I composed the following.”
Here is the poem (I have made one change to deal with some gendered language):
O Thou Great Being! what Thou art,
Surpasses me to know:
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then [strengthen] my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!
In this time of COVID and Omicron, we echo Burns’ prayer, that we would be strengthened to bear the burden and without anxiety and fear.
Peter Bush,
Fergus
Successful show
Dear Editor:
The 3rd Line Lights raised $3,470 this year and stuffed a truck with donations for the food bank and humane society with their musical computerized Christmas light show.
The Toso and Henderson families hoped everybody enjoyed the show and are grateful for the community’s generosity.
Lance Henderson,
Centre Wellington
Snow angels
Dear Editor:
I just wanted to say Thank you to all the neighbours who helped clear the snow for their neighbours today. Thank you.
Mary Robson,
Fergus