Letter: Action on climate change cannot be weakened

Dear Editor:  I am writing this letter in response to the controversy about climate change, and Newfoundland’s place in either reducing or worsening this global problem.

The letter from Tim McMillan of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers of Canada (CAPP), which gave support to Premier Ball and his recent announcement on doubling the production of oil, makes me pick up my pen. I feel I must protest the ever-predictable arguments of the CAPP on this issue.

I am forced to wonder: Why is what is obvious to 98 per cent of scientists (that climate change is here and now, and is increasing in severity every year) not obvious to our political leaders? An echo-chamber of corporate lobbying by organizations like the CAPP certainly can’t help.

We need an economic boost in Newfoundland and Labrador, but ANY increase in oil and gas exploration leads to an increase in atmospheric heat – trapping gases and increasing average temperatures on earth. This is now recognised as basic high school physics. Doubling oil production contradicts our commitment to the Paris climate agreement and will not make long term jobs more stable in a changing energy economy. It will, however, worsen our dependency upon volatile forms of energy that the world is moving away from.

It is not up to other nations to adapt to a changing energy environment. It does not matter who burns the oil that we extract; it is the total accumulative effects that matter.  United Nations experts have stated that untapped carbon resources MUST stay in the ground if the world is going to escape the most serious effects of climate change.

My own research on this issue started because of my interest in the global medical consequences of un-abated climate change. There is now a consensus among the medical, and scientific community that there will be an highly detrimental increase in medical illnesses due to climate change and global warming.

The Lancet (Britain’s oldest medical journal) stated this year that climate change will lead to serious medical impacts, and I encourage people to read their research, which is available online.

But the problem of climate change and global warming is only accepted at a very superficial level by our provincial government, even if the people of our province are becoming increasingly aware of the first-hand effects of climate change.  Warming IS happening, and will continue to progress, unless there is global shift to renewable energy. We have already set enough of the detrimental impacts of climate change in motion, we do not need to worsen them.

I had hoped that this new Liberal Government in NL, and the election of Prime Minister Trudeau, would usher in the beginning of a change in Canada. But if the lobbyists at CAPP get there way our grandchildren will have to pick up the bits.

We cannot, as citizens, allow action on climate change to be weakened.

Dr. Ian Simpson, Humber Village