Letter to the Editor
Editor,
When our council passed the climate crisis/emergency motion at the November 18 council meeting, my heart was full. I’m grateful that as a community we are not sitting on the sidelines watching as other people in our country and around the globe suffer due to the warming of the earth and the related damage to our biosphere.
Our municipality may not be destroyed by rising sea levels as in the Solomon Islands or coastal communities as in the Arctic.
Nor do we have to witness firsthand the starving polar bears and their inability to produce and care for their cubs because of loss of sea ice and their seal hunting grounds.
Nor do we have to worry about extreme droughts that cause economic hardship to the extent that parents put their lives and the lives of their children on the line to reach safe countries. Such environmental refugees are not the daily concerns of our municipality.
Yet, Councillor Steve Bartley looked beyond his personal situation and addressed the climate crisis/emergency on behalf of his grandkids. His motion has started the process for incremental actions that will allow our municipality to do its part in this global crisis/emergency.
To me, the spirit behind the motion embodies the Golden Rule.
For Christians, it’s, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’
For Muslims, ‘Do unto all men as you would wish to have done unto you.’
For Indigenous Peoples, ‘Live in harmony for we are all related.’
For Jews, ‘What you yourself hate, do to no man’.
It makes me proud to live in a community and have councillors that can look past the question, ‘Whose fault is this anyway?’ To the answer, ‘Let’s all pitch in and do our part to avoid further global environmental destruction.’
This is no time to sit on the sidelines, and we aren’t!
Lindy Iversen, Meaford
