Letters to The Vancouver Sun: We are enduring a severe health emergency

When B.C. needs to declare a state of emergency because the wildfires in the Okanagan are creating their own weather system — which includes creating lightning and flames beyond anything firefighters have ever seen — it is well overdue to declare a state of emergency on our energy system. This extreme weather is due to climate change from the use of fossil fuels; that’s the gas in your car and the natural gas heating your house. The burning of fossil fuels creates a pollution blanket around the Earth that traps the sun’s heat, drying out the trees and ground cover, altering water systems and causing extreme weather events. This hot dry ground cover and hot wind make the Earth vulnerable to these wildfires.

I am a retired nurse and understand the impacts of stress, polluted air and extreme heat on human bodies. This is a massive tragedy for all the people involved in evacuating their homes and experiencing the stress and terror of this kind of situation. It is a severe health emergency for all in this province who are inhaling the air that is highly polluted with toxic wildfire smoke. And it is an unforgivable crime of the fossil fuel companies, who knew this kind of thing would happen many years ago and continued to develop their product.

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Unfortunately, our governments that continue to develop the fossil fuel infrastructure by planning new pipelines are unwitting accomplices to this crime, when their job is to protect us, their citizens.

It is beyond disturbing to continue using fossil fuels when we have this knowledge and are watching the consequences in real time.

Please shut off the pipes and let the sun shine. Solar, wind, hydro and batteries are fantastic, affordable and available alternatives. This wildfire emergency was not inevitable, and an even bleaker future is not inevitable. We are smart enough to have developed these alternatives — let’s please be smart enough to transition into using them everywhere, now.

I live on a small, heavily forested island in B.C. Every summer, I watch the forest around my home become drier. I think about wildfire. I think about smoke, evacuation, our limited roads and ferries, and what would happen if fire came to our community.

Climate change isn’t an abstraction from here. That’s why I find it so difficult to understand governments continuing to use public money and public resources to support expanded fossil-fuel development.

I pay taxes willingly because there are things we need to do together. I want my taxes to pay for health care, education, firefighters, emergency preparedness, resilient communities and the transition to cleaner energy.

I do not want to pay taxes so governments can help make the problem we’re preparing for worse.

We will need firefighters. We will need evacuation plans. We will need communities better prepared for heat, drought and fire. But surely prevention belongs in our definition of public safety too.

If public money is going to shape B.C.’s future, it should be making that future safer.