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LETTER: The war on climate change

It is easy to see why there has been pushback against the urgency of reducing climate change.
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It is easy to see why there has been pushback against the urgency of reducing climate change when we see the inaction of state governments and the absence of genuine alarm from the corporate media. The truth of the matter is that if we wish to save our environment and ultimately our civilization, extreme action is needed.

We can no longer trust our national or provincial governments to act in our best interests. Change must come from people at the local level. All towns, cities, and municipalities must initiate radical social and economic changes in their spheres of influence and thus exert pressure on governments to do the same.

The people must rally behind environmental organizations, such as the EcoSociety here in the Kootenays. By donating time and money to such organizations, we can implement changes to attitudes and behaviour that are at the root cause of waste and pollution.

First of all, we can denounce the “new global economy” as being a tool of the financial sector in order to rob individual countries of their autonomy and to rapidly steal their natural resources. We can accomplish this by supporting more local businesses and by initiating and developing more cooperatives in order to make our community more self-sufficient in the areas of food production and green power generation.

In the area of transportation we could facilitate, perhaps through municipal or provincial grants, the purchase of a green transit system and provide local incentives that would encourage people to transition to electric or even hybrid vehicles.

More affluent home owners could be asked for donations to help pay for energy upgrades to financially challenged home owners we are all together in this mess.

Perhaps a cooperative movement could be initiated to transform all existing lawn areas into productive food gardens which then could supply all Nelsonites with fresh produce. Add more community greenhouses to this and you would be able to provide meaningful work for all of the “un” or “under” employed people in our community.

Most importantly, people must be informed of the true causes of global warming: greed and social inequalities. Through town hall meetings and seminars we could help to change attitudinal behaviours that are obstacles to solving the most important issue facing humanity today.

Wayne Savard, Nelson