Dear Editor:
Climate change is said to be an important issue for most Canadians in this election campaign.
It appears that Canada’s federal parties have all settled on imposing taxes on Canadians as being the way to save the world from climate change, but these taxes will have to be a lot higher to get people to stop using fossil fuels. Why are alternatives not being discussed?
One Conservative candidate used the term “climate lockdown” but was forced to remove it. I think this is an interesting idea. Gerry Walsh advised us in her letter last week to stop buying useless items. This is a good idea as most of them come from China, where they do not have the strict pollution standards we have and the items have to be shipped a long distance using fossil fuels.
However, this would not be as helpful as a climate lockdown that would ground airplanes which certainly do use massive amounts of fossil fuel. Most people using air travel don’t need to. I equate air travel to the useless items we shouldn’t buy. There are no passenger airplanes that don’t use fossil fuel so there is no alternative, hence the need for a climate lockdown if we are to save the world from man-made climate change.
There has not been much uptake for a ban on unnecessary air travel. That would kill tourism and Canadians love their winter vacations in the sun. We know from the COVID-19 lockdowns that grounding airplanes greatly reduced carbon emissions. Since then people are back to flying and the CO2 is spewing again. It makes me wonder if people really believe in the imminent catastrophic climate change that is preached to us daily.
They appear to be satisfied with the application of plastic Band-Aids to fix an open, blood-gushing wound. Perhaps they know subconsciously there is something wrong with the whole scenario but don’t want to rock the boat or even study the matter because the “experts” talk them down. Will taxes save the Earth from CO2 which, by the way, is good for growing plants? Unlikely.
Jane Vandervliet,
Erin