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Letters Oct. 2: Responding to climate change

Joining climate protest inspiring for senior On Friday, I joined the thousands of young people heading down to the legislature. I wanted to show my support for what they are doing and saying.
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Thousands gathered outside the B.C. legislature on Friday for the cliimate-strike rally. Sept. 27, 2019

Joining climate protest inspiring for senior

On Friday, I joined the thousands of young people heading down to the legislature. I wanted to show my support for what they are doing and saying.

It’s hard to put into words the impact this powerful event had on me. When I went to my closest bus stop, there were already at least a dozen teens waiting for the bus to arrive. We all piled on, squeezing back to make sure there was room for everyone.

By the time we arrived downtown, the excitement was palpable, and I found myself tearing up frequently as I watched these eager young people streaming into the space in front of the government buildings. They are full of passion. Angry, yes, but more importantly, determined to be heard. Determined to make those in positions of power listen, and act.

I am 81 years old, and along with others of my vintage, have been trying for years to get our various levels of government to listen. To listen to the wisdom of people like David Suzuki, and make changes before it’s too late.

Frankly, it became so disheartening, I wanted to give up. But on Friday, I saw that we have made a difference. Our children and grandchildren heard us, and they are now a force to be reckoned with.

Watch out, you politicians. These young people are not going away, and there are thousands of them. You can no longer patronize, marginalize or ignore them.

I am so proud of them, and for the first time in a long time, I am feeling hopeful.

Mary Gillanders
Victoria

Want change? Walk, bike or bus to school

Re: “Thousands gather in downtown Victoria as part of global climate strike,” Sept. 27

While it’s inspiring to see young people around the world rise up and begin to demand change in government and corporate policies and action regarding climate change, it would be even more powerful if each person protesting committed to:

• turning off the lights in their rooms and houses

• taking fewer and shorter showers

• walking, biking or using public transportation rather than borrowing the family car or asking a parent to drive them two kilometres to school

• learning how to grow some of their own food

• volunteering at a food bank or other not-for-profit to understand more about the real world and the challenges many people face

It is understandable for young people to want prompt and effective changes to the impending crisis of climate change — it is their future, after all — but can they change their own behaviour, now, so they truly become part of the solution?

Susan Simosko Debling
North Saanich

Forgo drop-offs and pick-ups

It was great to see so many young people come out in regards to global warming. I have a suggestion for students about reducing fossil-fuel use and how they can do their part to help reduce it.

Perhaps this is the time for them to forgo being dropped off and picked up from school every day by automobile, and begin to find other means of making their daily commute, whether it be cycling, walking or public transportation.

Max Grace
Victoria

Do something substantive, too

One begins to be distrustful of youthful enthusiasm and idealism. It’s always easier to find something wrong with the past than to do something about it.

Those of us who are approaching our sunset years can only look back and sigh. Here we go again.

Now, I’m not saying all protest is wrong. I don’t think anyone disputes just cause regarding the 1960s anti-war protests, and if you went to UVic in the 1970s, you’ll remember the sit-ins. Funny … I don’t remember the reason for the sit-ins.

Here’s the take-away. To the youth that went to the climate-change protest and the parents who encouraged them to go, now do something substantive in response.

Examine everything you do or purchase in light of its relation to the climate. Go further and take your youth, idealism and vigour and enrol in appropriate university courses.

Join businesses that fight your fight. Let it not be merely another exercise in holding your elders’ feet to the fire, or worse yet an excuse to get out of school.

Terry Kniert
Victoria

No valid argument, attack messenger

Re: “A dressing down from a sour-faced teen,” letter, Sept. 28.

It’s incredible the type of silly arguments put forward by those defending the widespread pillaging of the environment, especially by fossil-fuel companies. They would be laughable were they not about a tragic subject.

The writer’s attack on the children protesting inaction in facing climate change is typical of what is often seen in bullies and despots: When they don’t have valid arguments to address the message, attack the messenger. Assume or invent a number of “faults” in your enemies, then attack them on those faults.

How does the writer know that Greta Thunberg doesn’t know the size of North America, or that she and the rest of the protesting children do not know that their cellphones leave a carbon footprint? Or that they use a dishwasher? They are all assumptions.

Does the writer expect children not to take the bus or drive in a car, unless it’s an electric car? Does the writer want them not to make big signs for their protests, because they use paper, which comes from trees? What about their clothes? The arguments are so ridiculous.

Having on their side a large majority of the scientific community, expert scientists in different branches of science and from all countries, and with more and more ordinary citizens protesting along with them, the children don’t need to worry about the meaning of hypocrisy. They see it every day in the critics of their movement.

J.G. Miranda
Victoria

Teens who take action are future leaders

Re: “A dressing down from a sour-faced teen,” letter, Sept. 28

Teens today are not the ones who created mobile phones; their grandparents’ or parents’ generation did, and they are the ones who likely introduced the teens to phones and may well have passed on the manners in which they are used.

They did not choose to have themselves swaddled in disposable diapers, nor to be driven around in gas-guzzling SUVs, nor did they adopt an attitude of entitlement “deus ex machina.” While, unfortunately, some teens have modelled their behaviour on their self-centred elders, in terms of not paying attention to the larger picture, many teens have fortunately been given a sense of the importance of responsibility, respectful dialogue and thoughtful analysis of our everyday actions in relation to human values and mother nature.

These teens are the leaders of the future, and individual courage and initiative have always been critical to significant social change.

Susan Nickum
Victoria

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• Email: letters@timescolonist.com

• Mail: Letters to the editor, Times Colonist, 2621 Douglas St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4M2.