Dear Editor:
RE: No emergency, Sept. 19.
I concur with Henry Brunsveld that climate change predictions are highly inflated.
For example, when it comes to ticks, climate change is a non-issue. If climate change was a factor, the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, which is the primary vector of Lyme disease, would inhabit Central America and the northern part of South America.
However, this tick has not changed its home range, which is the temperate zone of North America.
Health Canada is barking up the wrong tree if they think that climate change fosters Lyme disease. Many factors, such as photoperiod, suitable hosts and snow cover, determine the distribution and numbers of blacklegged ticks – not climate change.
John D. Scott,
Fergus