A couple surveys floodwaters from behind a row of sandbags on the street in an east end community of Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
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Climate change urgency
Re Canada’s Flood Dangers Must Be Mapped (May 1):
I have seen a recent flood map of my neighbourhood in Ottawa, thanks to a mapping project undertaken by the inestimable Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. That would be the same RVCA whose grant from the Province of Ontario was recently halved.
What a short-sighted and foolish decision that was. Climate change is here and wise governments will mitigate its effects and sharply curtail further emissions.
Listening to youth climate activists would be a good place to start.
Charlotte Masemann, Ottawa
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We should not be surprised that destructive flooding is a continuing topic in our media streams.
Weather patterns have been changing for decades and we have not taken steps to change our stormwater management strategies to address the increasing precipitation events.
Not only are we not proactive in our efforts, we are also still at the “testing” stage of low impact development (LID) and green infrastructure (GI) alternatives, even though they have been widely used in similar climates throughout Europe and beyond for decades. It is imperative that we combine our efforts and start encouraging, promoting and supporting the use of green technologies, such as permeable pavements, green roofs and rain gardens. Change needs to start from the top and we are now looking to our municipalities to lead the way.
Let 2019 be the year where we start to limit the sealed surfaces found throughout our cities and “go green.”
Ellise Gasner, founder, LID Permeable Paving Canada, Toronto
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No climate change policy generated by Canadians, for Canada, matters (Climate Change Is A Major Factor In Flooding – But It’s Not The Only One, April 30).
Think of it this way: If the United States removed its security umbrella that protects Canada, Canada would be defenceless. We simply do not provide sufficient military to defend our borders. The same circumstance applies to climate change.
Canada does not supply enough greenhouse gas emissions to affect Canadian global warming. All Canadian media and political caterwauling over climate change is window dressing on the world stage. Let’s work on things we can fix, such as not building on flood plains.
Douglas L. Martin, Hamilton
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Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says “we need to strike the right balance between environmental protection and economic growth” (Kenney Pledges To Restore Balance To Alberta, May 1).
On most issues, balance is sensible. Not on climate change.
As U.S. writer Bill McKibben points out: “Humans and their societies do work best with gradual transitions – it gives everyone some time to adapt. But climate change, sadly, isn’t a classic contest between two groups of people. It’s a negotiation between people on the one hand and physics on the other. And physics doesn’t do compromise.”
Physics says that unless we keep the rise in global temperature below the tipping point for a disastrous climate breakdown (1.5 C by 2100, according to the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), we won’t have much of an economy left to protect. To pretend otherwise is not only disingenuous; it’s also suicidal.
Michael Polanyi, Toronto
Kenney’s nostalgia
Re Jason Kenney Won Because He Understands Albertans (April 23):
Mostly he understands our nostalgia for a period when demand for fossil fuels outstripped supply and everyone ignored evidence that they will destroy the planet. Contrary to Preston Manning’s claims in his column, the last NDP government was far more competent than its Tory predecessors that created debt while Norway accumulated a sovereign fund (now worth more than US$1-trillion) and provided far better health, education and social services than Alberta enjoys.
Rachel Notley’s NDP government poured money into renewables and economic diversification and maintained services that Mr. Kenney’s United Conservative Party plans to cut by 20 per cent over four years to prevent any redistribution of wealth from Mr. Kenney's corporate supporters toward working people and the poor.
Albertans will pay a heavy price for that nostalgia.
Alvin Finkel, Edmonton
Unfinished business
If Robert Mueller is unhappy with U.S. Attorney-General William Barr’s elisions, he has only himself to blame (Mueller Says A-G’s Summary Didn’t Capture Context Of Russia Probe, May 1).
Nature and politics abhor a vacuum, and Mr. Barr has simply stepped into the breach created when Mr. Mueller stopped short of completing his mandate.
Howard Greenfield, Montreal
Advances in shaving
For anyone who thinks that we should return to the simplicity, economy and minimal material use of the “safety razor,” I have two words: styptic pencil (Are Plastic Razors The Next Plastic Straw? April 27).
I cannot be the only one who remembers that men and boys of shaving age frequently turned up in the morning, victims of their safety razors, their faces studded with bloody tufts of Kleenex. At least once a week, you followed the ritual of shave, dab cuts with a styptic pencil while recoiling at the sting, decorate your face with Kleenex and set forth among friends and schoolmates who invariably snickered while recognizing that they would get their turn.
The first encased blade, the Wilkinson Bonded Blade, was a revelation – no cuts and the pencil went in the garbage. Single-use razors are a clumsy overextension of the encased-blade concept, but I’m confident there are millions of men who would march in the streets before they would give up their plastic-encased replaceable blades.
David Weatherston, Toronto
Tights: TMI
Re The Fight Over Tights: Why Do Women Wear Leggings (April 27)?
Thank you for bringing this issue to the written page. Leggings are not pants.
Why some women in Canada, young and old, insist on showing the general public every inch of their buttocks is beyond me. I would like to be able to stand in line and order my chai tea latte without having this issue thrust upon me.
Perhaps we should start a charity for those who are too poor to buy T-shirts that reach to their thighs.
Nattanya Hewitt, Duncan, B.C.
Rats: TMI
Re Rats: Humanity’s Great Mirror (May 1):
Two images I do not want in my head while enjoying my morning coffee are those of rats having sex beside me and coming up out of the toilet. Please stop!
Trish Crowe, Kingston