To the Editor:
You know I’ve been writing about the importance of trees and our forests for years. The only thing that scientists around the world can agree on is that deforestation is the one major reason for climate change, along with pollution.
The problem that accompanies the severe weather we’ve been experiencing more and more of – like Pakistan, 30 million people left homeless due to flooding, Florida under water, Australia suffering severe flooding, British Columbia in severe drought receiving 16 ml of rain since July when the norm is 165 ml, rivers drying up millions of fish dying along with other wildlife. Was extreme deforestation the cause?
What’s attached to these events is the monetary costs put on governments around the world is astronomical. What will happen when there are no more emergency funds to help the people in crisis get back on their feet? So rather than trying to protect all the trees we can, we still seem to think we don’t need any of them and that they stand in the way of our success and progress – completely ignoring the fact that trees and forests are the only thing standing between us and the loss of our world, our home and our very future.
I had a thought for a while that so many people in our province dislike trees. I’m not pointing the finger at anyone – it’s developers, mining, forestry, agriculture. So why don’t we just clear cut the whole province from Cornwall to Timmins? I figure it would take 15 to 18 years. Our present government would probably say, think of all the jobs. Of course we’d have to wipe out all the wildlife due to lack of habitat. I guarantee that in the three to five years we would turn the clear-cut area into a toxic dust bowl, just like in Oklahoma decades ago which cleared 1 million acres which set off a ten-year drought.
That’s our main problem as humans. We keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, thinking things are different now, when they’re not. We’re just as greedy, needy and arrogant as always and our government’s tend to only see the bottom line; profit, markets and feeding the corporate machine.
Rather than protecting our trees and forests, there’s a new player on the block called DRAX originally providing coal to biomass generators in the United Kingdom. When coal was banned, DRAX rebranded themselves into wood pellets..
As time went by, they began clear-cutting large lots of old-growth forests for their business, In B.C. They were given the blessing by the premier. The man calls it “Green Energy” and says it’s a win-win for the province.
Canada isn’t the only country being roped by DRAX. The U.S., Estonia, Australia, , South Korea and Japan, all of them believing it is totally sustainable, when that is not the truth at all, it is the furthest thing from the truth, It’s renewable, but just not fast enoug. We’re out of trees, out of bees, and yes out of time!
You know when I write these letters, I wonder if they make a difference, same as when I stand on the side of the road. Do I reach anyone, do I make people truly think of our trees and their importance to our very existence? I have to keep trying, especially for the next generation.
Please don’t ever forget the trees!
Thank you,
Andy Perreault
