Mr. Editor,
Thank you for your thoughtful opinion pieces in recent editions of The Meaford Independent: Why Small Towns and Suburbs Need to Build Up, Not Out (July 22), Can We Ever be Respectful to One Another Again? (July 29), and This Week’s Rants (The 3Rs, Rants, Raves & Rumours, August 12 print edition). While they cover different topics, it seems to me there is a shared thread connected to Climate Change.
Let’s start with your rant. As you describe in detail, the report of the UN IPCC has issued a dire warning about the seriousness of the impact of Climate Change on all of us. It concludes unequivocally that humans are the primary cause. As you say, we have a “nightmare coming our way”. Unless we can pull together with great energy and resolve to seize the opportunities for hope that still exist.
One opportunity for hope that we have, as you say in “Why Small Towns and Suburbs Need to Build Up, Not Out” is to increase the density in Meaford and preserve the land that would have been used to build out for available green spaces, parks and sustainable agriculture. Finding Nature-based solutions to help mitigate Climate Change is crucial. For example, trees and grasslands are fantastic at drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the earth. In addition, saving our natural spaces will help address biodiversity loss, which also poses an existential threat to life as we know it. We must do all we can to preserve and nurture our natural spaces.
Well-planned densification has other wonderful benefits for us. It brings economic advantages and lifestyle benefits. The vision presented by 8-80 cities – that a town where an eight year old and an 80 year old can thrive is a town that will be great for all people – promotes sustainable mobility, parks, and public spaces to create resilient communities “where people are actively engaged and fairly represented”. Densification enables sustainable mobility, where people can learn, shop, bank, obtain professional services and socialize within a short walk/bike or scooter ride from home. And densification enlarges the customer base for businesses.
And this brings me to your piece “Can We Ever be Respectful to One Another Again?” The pandemic has isolated so many of us, curtailing the shared activities that helped to bind us together as a community. In isolation, we lost sight of our sense of shared responsibility to nurture the common good. Can we come together now in hope to create a shared vision of a resilient and equitable community and a sustainable way of life? Can we share in the creation of a new way of life that understands the role that Nature and community spirit play in our own well-being and in a healthy future for the Earth and generations that will inhabit it? History tells of many instances where we have overcome crises through our sense of common purpose and ingenuity. Surely we can do it again!
Sincerely,
Lesley Lewis, Meaford
