To the Editor:

I really enjoyed Mr. Champagne’s letter concerning the cement plant filled with facts and alarming numbers on TVO the other night. They had a question: What is your municipality doing to prepare for climate change? I thought–us people in this part of Ontario, we’re installing one of the most vile, nasty, polluting industry in the whole world in our backyard. The collateral damage to our air, water, land and our wellness will be devastating for years to come.

I could blame politicians, but to me they are a non entity – a pawn between big businesses, banks and us. They basically just do what they’re told to do, rather than blame the banks and corporations who are invisible to us in their ivory towers. We prefer to take out our anger on the political underlying or sacrificial lambs.

As far as climate change goes, we as a species just couldn’t be bothered to try and save our planet. It seems there is more money to be made in killing this amazing planet than there is in trying to save it.

The very practices that put our planet in peril in most cases are just being accelerated by the powers to be – the big money-makers, banks, corporations, markets and hi-tech – of which most of you are addicted up to your eyeballs. I know all about addiction, but mine was a tangible substance, drugs and alcohol, whereas yours is mental and intellectual addiction and your dealers are Google, Apple, TikTok, Netflix, Facebook, television and all the rest of that mind-altering influence you crave every second, every minute, of every day of your existence.

The event of hi-tech 25 years ago has changed the very fabric of humanity and all by design. The people who write these programs know exactly how to get you hooked and keep you that way, going through life in a daze and seeing nothing wrong with it, because there are so many of you.

As a people, we will continue to make the same mistakes. We went nuclear, we had radioactive waste we put in barrels and dumped into the oceans by the thousands, oil and gas, massive destruction, the largest carbon footprint on the planet, tailing ponds still leaking in our land and rivers, pulp and paper–the sludge of river that pollutes our lakes and rivers, now it’s going electric, habitat destruction, mining for lithium and cobalt (what about the sludge, again?). And what about the collateral damage that will be done with the old batteries?

We as humans go through life as a knee-jerk reaction, never truly thinking out our actions and their aftermath.

A few years ago, scientists around the world agreed that the two main reasons for climate change are pollution and deforestation, with the result being catastrophic. We will continue on this journey until there is no food to eat, no clean water, and we no longer want to breathe the air we can see.

This has turned into a perfect storm: overrun hospitals, health care at risk, pandemic, inflation, rising taxes, general world unrest fueled by social media. To top it off, the event we have been constantly putting on the back burner, climate change, is here, it’s now, and it’s real – which explains why so many people are doing all they can right now. An accelerated bucket list knowing that our own mortality is more evident than ever before. We could lose everything we’ve taken for granted through our whole existence, which is why so many choose to escape to the virtual world.

Our existence is not a rehearsal or a dry run. I choose to face it clear-minded and not poisoned at every turn.

Good luck with your addiction,

Andy Perreault

Vankleek Hill