If your care about the future of life on our planet, this one might bring a tear to your eyes
A poignant Earth Day video and “reminder of the urgent need to protect our planet” from the United Nations
A Brief Comment by Doug Draper
Posted April 29th, 2019 on Niagara At Large
Since we began observing the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this past Monday April 22nd with events that ran in communities across Niagara and other regions of the world through the remainder of the week, there were reasons for hope, for anger, and for tears.
The hope came from watching children and their parents planting trees, cleaning trash from parks and roadsides, and engaging in other Earth Day activities in their communities. And it came from all of the mostly young people who are standing up for their future in their calls for action on climate change.
The anger came from watching political leaders like Premier Doug Ford in Ontario warring on over what he calls a “federal tax” on gasoline – a price the federal government is attempting to put on climate-altering carbon emissions in an effort to reduce the amount of carbon spewing in to the atmosphere.
A poster for a workshop Conservation Ontario and Conservation Authorities in the Toronto area held on flood management in 2018. This April, Ford government cut funding to the NPCA and the other 35 Conservation Authorities in Ontario for flood management, even as flood waters in some areas of the province rise to destructive levels that have rarely been experienced in the communities impacted.
The anger also came from Ford cutting funding for planting trees in Ontario and cutting funding for Conservation Authorities in the province, including ours in the Niagara region, to take measures to reduce damage to people and property from flooding – all of this cutting of environment protection programs and more while people along the Ottawa River and other areas of Ontario were (and still are) suffering catastrophic losses due to record flooding.
And the tears came from thoughts of all we have to lose by way of a beautiful and health planet – the only oasis we know we have for life in the entire universe – if we don’t take action.
I certainly found myself shedding a few tears when I watched a video circulated world-wide by the United Nations, which has been working with armies of scientists and climate experts around the world to convince government leaders to take climate change seriously enough to do what is necessary before it is too late.
“This video is a poignant reminder of the urgent need to protect the planet,” said a message from the United Nations that accompanied its release on Earth Day.
Please watch the video by clicking on the screen below, and share it with all of your friends –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ohPTeVqRk
Learn More by clicking on – https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/
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