Dear Editor:
RE: “Canada not that bad” and “Ignoring energy facts,” April 25.
Every week I am glad to read the Wellington Advertiser, including the editorial and letters.
There were two letters against the carbon tax April 25. One reason stated by a car driver was that China is the highest emitter, and does little to improve! That reason is confounding. One reason our emissions are less is that our population is much less than China’s.
For decades it has been written by scientists and others that we’ve caused serious global warming, mostly because of our lifestyle. A carbon tax is not unreasonable. I don’t pay the tax because I don’t have a motor vehicle.
Carbon tax revenue should be used by our government to finance more mass transit. The 1995 Report of the Ontario Task Force on the Primary Prevention of Cancer says, in part: the negative environmental impacts of vehicle emissions, including global warming and acid rain, may be causing irreparable damage to our ecosystem and threatening our health. It suggests taxing car use to subsidize less polluting forms of travel.
Electric vehicles are not the answer. Car use causes congestion and fatal collisions, such as the April 29 one on 401 near Whitby with four people killed.
We’re safer and more comfortable in a bus or a train.
Helen Hansen,
Guelph
*Editor’s note: The federal government’s price on carbon does not apply solely to gasoline for vehicles.