Photo: Brian Burger
The scientific consensus is clear: human-induced climate change is well underway, changing the very nature of our planet. The impacts on human communities and on wildlife are already being felt – around the world and right here at home.
What’s at stake
If we are unable to change course fast enough to stay below a global rise in temperature of 2 degrees, we face the prospect of dangerous climate change. The world’s top scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are warning not only of increasing extreme weather-related disasters such as droughts, coastal storm surges from sea-level rise and wildlife extinctions, but also of rises in climate-related conflict and refugees, and devastating impacts on food stocks and human security.
Here in British Columbia, coastal waters are becoming more acidic, the pine beetle has damaged our forestry industry, warming rivers threaten our salmon stocks, forest fires and droughts are becoming more severe and common, and rising seas are encroaching on our coastal communities.
The message is clear
To have a chance at a livable planet for our children and grandchildren, we need to break our addiction to fossil fuels now and leave the majority of the world’s remaining reserves in the ground.
There are currently over a dozen new fossil fuel projects proposed for the shores of the Salish Sea, with a combined carbon output greater than the annual emissions of 90 nations combined. This puts our region on the front lines of the climate challenge, and presents us with a stark choice:
Do we want to become a climate leader, paving the way towards a green economy, or a global fossil fuel hub, exporting climate change to the world?
What you can do
There is now also an overwhelming consensus that climate protection is affordable and achievable with already-available technology and modest lifestyle changes. To get there, we need to say ‘no’ to the trans mountain pipeline and other dirty fossil fuel projects, and ‘yes’ to a clean energy future of stable local jobs, connected communities, and clean air and water.
Act now to stop TMX
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