He also laments the lack of attention being paid to that by government agencies when compared to the pandemic, and with it the unequal treatment of two emergencies — climate and the pandemic — by both media and governing bodies.
Do we, however, really need more mind-numbing briefings, let alone conferences in swanky places, to be told the umpteenth time that the climate is changing and that it will play havoc sometime in the future?
There are things that can be done right now to adapt to the inevitable in the near and long term: for a start, make air conditioning units available to people baking in their dwellings, provide more temporary cooling shelters such as the Union Gospel Mission of Vancouver does.
Lest someone points to air conditioners being yet another electricity demand, contrast it with a plugged-in electric car for the already well off in such a situation.
Of course, not all is about heat, heat strokes, withering vegetation, fires, and the burned Interior’s creeping desertification.
It is also about the water table, and our as yet glacier-fed streams and rivers. What will happen once these natural reservoirs of summer water are gone?
Dry riverbeds most of the year and destructive flash floods following torrential rains!
And yes, as Gio Roberti pointed out in the same issue of The Chief, What are some climate change impacts 麻豆社国产can expect? [July 20 online] there will be more and bigger landslides too.
He suggests people should adapt and be prepared for an emergency. What about preparation by our civic leaders at all levels of government?
Informing, planning and perhaps soon putting in place the necessary infrastructure to prepare for the inevitable: Improved dikes, water reservoirs, flood plains and slopes evaluation, selective creek/river ameliorations, selective thinning of hazardous vegetation in some areas, etc?
I know, it does not sound environmentally friendly, and I don’t like it either, but what real other alternatives are there?
Policymakers of all stripes love to talk about the future because someone else will then have to make the unpopular “hands-on” decisions, and the media plays right along with it. Unfortunately, reciting homilies about “natural” and “sustainable” alone won’t be the answer either.
Wolfgang Wittenburg
Squamish
