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June 2: Catastrophe predicted and it’s getting closer

Re: “There is a future for LNG in Canada,” letter, May 29. A letter to the Times 91ԭ suggests we need LNG now because “there will be a long transition period before we move to a fossil-free environment.

Re: “There is a future for LNG in Canada,” letter, May 29.

A letter to the Times 91ԭ suggests we need LNG now because “there will be a long transition period before we move to a fossil-free environment.”

That is true but we haven’t time for a long transition period. Catastrophes caused by past inaction are happening now.

The International Panel on Climate Change warned in October, 2018, that we have only a dozen years before droughts, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people will significantly worsen.

Twenty-seven years ago, the authors of the book, Beyond the Limits wrote what we had to be done by the year 2030 to prevent human-population numbers crashing from about nine billion to around three billion in the following 50 years.

They found we had to address many problems at once, and what we now call “climate change” was but one of them.

We’ve done almost nothing for 27 years.

The magnitude of the disaster looming seems to have penetrated the brains of only a few high school students who strike monthly for action.

There is always something we can do to make catastrophes less disastrous. But that requires bold and dramatic decisions by governments. Neither of Canada’s two main parties make bold or drastic decisions — it’s not in their conservative natures.

Do not weep for your children and grandchildren. Rather, think carefully before voting in October’s federal election.

Philip Symons

Victoria