So as I'm dealing with produce, I'm also declaring my affiliations and getting active in a local election campaign, and I'm inviting you, my readers (all 16 of you, ha!) to do the same.
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| My daughter is wearing this t-shirt these days... |
You may hate the idea of talking politics, but I'd like to assure you that there has never been a more important time to do so. The human population of our country and our world need to get our act together and step up to the challenge of reducing and adapting to the changes in climate that we are noticing more and more. For most of us in Canada, climate change is not serious yet, but we can't let that lull us into complacency!
Listen to our scientists -- the people who study what's going on because of their passion for our planet have been telling us that its warming is endangering our survival. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report gave us 12 years to cut our fossil fuel emissions drastically, or we may not last much longer as a species.
But some say that 12 years is optimistic -- already we are seeing mega storms, mega fires, mega floods, mega droughts, mega heat waves and more than 7 million climate refugees looking for safer places to live since the beginning of this year alone... and on it goes.
In my part of the world this summer, we have had one of the coldest and wettest seasons on record, and I've heard lots of people comment, "Global warming? What global warming?"
My response is that it may not be hot here, but Europe saw temps around 45 degrees in some places this summer. Tuktoyaktuk is already losing land due to higher seas. Greenland was warmer than Edmonton a lot of the summer. Stream temperatures in Alaska reached the predicted temperature for 2069, fifty years ahead of time, and spawning salmon can't survive that kind of warmth. The burning of the Amazon is only making things worse. And how about Hurricane Dorian? Dismiss all these things as one-offs, and you're missing the message that our planet is trying to send us all.
If you know me at all, you know that I'm not the kind of person who is a pessimist. But I'm a realist, and I cannot, in good conscience, work for one of our three best known political parties. I'm working for the Greens because they are the only ones who are constant in making climate issues a priority.
I know that a lot of people are worried about vote splitting creating an opportunity for a less appreciated party to come up the middle and win, but this time, voting strategically is not an option for me. I want to see vote shifting -- using our limited resources to get to a greener economy, away from big polluting industries and toward options that care for people and the planet.
I am voting for, and working for, our climate. Sure, there are many other issues, but if we don't have a liveable environment, none of them matter. Though our Alberta government might be in denial, the world is shifting from fossil fuels to greener options, and I want Canada to hurry up and get on that bandwagon. And I'd like to see how the Greens would bring that about, because the other parties don't seem to understand that climate change and moving away from creating greenhouse gases is the main issue for this election and for our survival.
If we we work for our climate, we'll have a better planet overall. If we don't work for our climate, we may not have many more elections to try and fix things.
We don't have much time. And making positive sacrifices for the sake of the planet right now, when things are relatively okay, will be much easier than adapting to bigger disasters further down the road.
Please, check out your green candidate, or better yet, call them and see if there's something small you can do to shift votes for the climate.
The time to make a difference is now.
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