
October 1, 2018 · 0 Comments
By Constance Scrafield
This Friday, September 28, the Climate Change Action Dufferin Caledon (CCADC) will present a petition to MPP Sylvia Jones, declaring that the damage of the increasing global warming resulting from human activity is an ever-growing danger and the expense to industry and the people of Ontario from the damage of global warming (storms, disease) “will exceed the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions now.”
The group asks the Ford government “to acknowledge the urgency of the current situation and present a plan with measurable, certifiable results whereby Ontario will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to the required level by 2030.”
The CCADC was founded by a coming together of like-minded, conscientious individuals to work as a group, promoting education and awareness of the rapidly growing dangers of global warming and climate change.
Pete Herlihy, one of the CCADC founders, sat down with the Citizen to talk about the group, what it has done and what is to come.
“We have worked against mines being established in sensitive places; last year we brought the Blue Dot to the Town and it was the only motion that was passed unanimously by the Council. The Blue Dot is David Suzuki Foundation that says the municipality will sign on to look at every decision they make from the point of view of doing no harm to the environment, as far as possible,” he said.
About the CCADC, Mr Herlihy said that Nancy Urekar, who ran for the Green Party in the last federal election, “has been central to the formation of the group. There are 22 members and about a dozen [variously] attend our meetings.”
He said, “Our objective is to find every way we can, on a personal and municipal level, to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere by planting trees and creating green spaces.
“The extinction rate is a thousand times the norm.”
We discussed the idea of joining together with other groups, even specifically for one time events: “Our common interest keeps us together. We’re all good at listening as well as speaking. That makes for good conversation. We’ve gathered some powerful people together. One of the things of major importance is education of girls and women. Well educated women frequently marry later and have fewer children.”
He assailed the “dreadful blow the Conservatives made when they imposed a budget limit on school boards, closing outdoor education centres.
“I could look on that as deliberate and teachers were all moving in the same direction.”
When, especially, city or town bound children – nowadays the majority – do not go out into nature, they miss a great many health benefits, both physically and mentally, that nothing else can substitute. More than that, they cannot readily understand the importance of the natural world and of keeping it safe, rather than destroying it.
“If we thought about the way we build houses, the alignment of the roofs facing south and equipped with solar panels. That’s been around for a long time. For long term savings, there is geothermal as in Iceland. This is all about education and political will.
We subsidize oil when we should be subsidizing plastic recycling.”
Said Mr. Herlihy, “If truth is power, keeping people ignorant is another kind of power, one that does not belong in any democracy.”
To sign the CCADC petition to be delivered to Sylvia Jones, contact Nancy Urekar on 519-939-6212.