Dear Mr. Prime Minister and all those it may concern,
Let’s talk about wildfires.
I send you a letter a week about climate change and last week I sent one about the air quality related to the US fires, but I didn’t address the idea of wildfires themselves.
These fires aren’t just 2020 being mean to us again. A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in August says that the number of days with high fire risk in California has doubled since the early 1980s. Global warming has warmed our climate 1 degree so far. We are only at the beginning. If we let it get to 1.5, it will be worse. 2 degrees will be catastrophic. We CANNOT let it get that far. Half a degree of warming may not seem like a catastrophe creating situation, but it is.
In the Paris Climate Accord, we promised that we would limit warming to 1.5 degrees. In 2019 you and your government said we are ‘on track’ for those extremely important targets. But in a CBC article of that same year, reporter Lucas Powers fact-checked that claim and determined it misleading. We, along with much of the world, is relying on the existence of technologies not yet developed at scale to reach our targets. That is a risky plan. I do not want my future to rely on a risky plan.
Wildfires are destructive and deadly, and they’re not the only extreme weather event that’s getting worse. Droughts and heatwaves have their own consequences even without causing fires. Even as I write this I await a huge hurricane to hit my province. That hurricane might cause some floods, but the real flooding issue will be in the spring. These weather events are horrible enough without climate change. But they are becoming more frequent and more dangerous as we continue to let temperatures rise.
Remember, this is the world 1 degree hotter then preindustrial levels. We cannot let it get past 1.5. Say it with me. Canada will do everything in its power to stop warming to exceed 1.5.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Amelia Penney-Crocker