LETTER
Issues: my care list
My choices in order of importance: environment, health and jobs . . . three areas that ultimately determine economic health. How so?
- Dry hot spells followed by floods, more and more abrupt changes in temperature are all highly affected by and originate in part from deforestation. Forests and woodland act as buffers and filters: cut them down and we create over a generation or two, desert-like conditions, poor or no agricultural productivity and poor air and water quality. Not to mention the gradual extinction of animals and plants. Is that good for our health or the economy?
- That hot summer burning sun that Environment Canada now warns us against. They make it sound normal but it is not. It is the result of ‘’a steady decline of about 4% in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere (the ozone layer), and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone around Earth's Polar Regions.’’ The term used for chemicals affecting the ozone is halocarbons. If the halocarbons overtake the natural cycle of ozone reproduction on a permanent basis the words that come to mind are ‘’fried chickens’’. It will be a bit like putting your pet in a microwave oven at a low cycle. The aviation industry is currently responsible for about 30% of ozone depleting chemicals. Is that good for our health or the economy?
- Hydrocarbons contribute to global warming. They include a host of chemicals or products: carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane, Nitrous oxide, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs- also part of halocarbons), coal, oil and natural gas -- only a few we hear about. The most dramatic results of global warming are the spread of disease (pulmonary among others), warmer waters and more hurricanes, increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves, ice melt (inundating coastal cities), and sea/ocean acidification (increasing species extinctions.) Is that good for our health or the economy?
Yes, not having a job is bad for your health. Continuous population growth combined with not being able to grow food, drink pure water, maintain clean air and hiding from the sun makes having a job a rather nebulous benefit.
Richard Martineau
Aylmer
