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LETTERS: West coast mostly sheltered from realities of climate change

Editor:
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Editor:

Climate change skepticism. Really?

I am skeptical of many things. I don’t believe Elvis is alive. I don’t believe the moon landing was “staged.”

I don’t believe the U.S. president is a “stable genius,” as he claims. And I certainly don’t believe everything politicians say.

However, surely, after decades of massive, international, study and debate, and growing symptomatic events impacting millions of people worldwide annually, we are past the point of debating that climate change is happening.

Yes, here in White Rock, proximity to the ocean moderates our little coastal microclimate.

Yes, on this coast, other than regular summer smoke advisories, we are not (yet) experiencing the direct effects of record forest fires, (as they are elsewhere in Western Canada and California), or the flooding from more frequent and more intense hurricanes (as they are in Eastern and Southeastern states).

And it is true that from my window here in South Surrey I cannot see the shrinking ice fields, melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, or ocean acidification and rising sea levels.

However, I can walk out my door into the greenspace and quickly see five mature western red cedars, that have thrived on this coast for millennia, dying out due to more frequent periods of drought.

And beyond what I can see, the fact remains that climate scientists from over 130 countries, worked for over six years to compile the work of 450 lead authors, (which was itself reviewed by an additional 2,500 experts) to produce the 2007 Report on Climate Change by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change.)

And they have concluded that the world is heating up, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is spiking (Google “NASA Climate Change Evidence”).

So, while climate life is still pretty good here in our little hamlet, (with the possible exception of everyone impacted by the storm damage to the pier) let’s not deny the science, and reality, in the larger world.

S.C. Mitten, South Surrey