THUNDER BAY — Climate change is stressing out students at Valley Central Public School.
They’re worried about rising sea levels, a warming planet and plastics choking Earth’s oceans.
They’re concerned politicians don’t care about the future of planet, only their own bank accounts.
They’re scared there won’t be much of a world left to inherit, that the damage is already irreversible.
Isobel Stewart, a 14-year-old Grade 8 student said it worries her a lot.
“It stresses me out because I’m worried that probably in the next 20 years there may not be such a great Earth to live in and having a forest to go out and run around in or having animals that you can see on the side of the road and be like, ‘Wow, look at that,’” she said.
“That’s something that really stresses me that that could all disappear in the next 20 to 25 years.
Her message to the ruling class is simple.
“Care about the environment, because that’s the most important thing. As long as you care and do as much as you can for the environment, reduce everything you can, that can make a difference. One person can make a change, but if you your whole community around you, that can help.”
Isobel and her classmates spent more than an hour on Friday morning listening to Dianne Saxe, Ontario’s former environmental commissioner, talk about the issue of climate change, what it’s legacy might be if not enough action is taken and trying to give them hope for the future, encouraging them to be global ambassadors, driving home the climate change message to their parents and grandparents.
Classmate Sarah McChristie, 13, said her biggest concern is that some people refuse to listen to the message being hit home on an almost daily basis by climate-change scientists, warning that if something isn’t done, it might soon be too late to save the planet.
“I’m mostly worried that some people won’t change how much waste they're producing and how much they’re polluting,” she said.
“I think that it’s really important for people my age to do something and teach our children and our grandchildren that they should do something to help because it’s really important.”
Saxe, whose reports were scrubbed from the Ontario government website after Premier Doug Ford took office last year, has since republished the data on her own website, and brought some of it to the rural Thunder Bay school on Friday, one of several stops in the city she planned to make while in town.
One brochure she produced showed the average Ontarian emits 2.2 tonnes of carbon while driving, 1.7 tonnes heating their home, 1.4 tonnes flying and half a tone eating beef.
“What’s infuriating in Ontario is we were doing so much right,” Saxe said, taking a stab at the Ford government that axed her from her former role.
A message she drove home was that most politicians don’t deny that climate change is actually happening, but they do disagree on what can be done to stop it, if anything at all, adding she’s worried Canada may pull out of a key global climate deal should the Conservatives win this fall’s federal election.
“It’s at risk,” she said. “If Canada turns away from the Paris agreement this year … we really may be toasted, roasted and grilled. If we continue to think that our short-term advantage is all that matters and we ignore the long-term – the long-term is going to bite us.”
Saxe, an environmental lawyer by trade, has reposted most of her reports at www.saxefacts.com.
