Take note of the Gulf of St. Lawrence
By Letter to the Editor on November 8, 2019.
Re: “Watch your climate language,” Nov. 6 The Magdalene Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have received some recent press coverage in other media. It seems scientists are interested because the Gulf of St. Lawrence is remarkable due to the significant warming that is happening there. It seems this temperature increase has caused the sea ice to disappear. The sea ice in the gulf was a normal fixture of life in the past. The ice had protected the island’s coast from waves during storms for centuries. The islands are not igneous rocks as a rocky coastline could protect the island from the crashing waves. The islands have the misfortune of sandstone cliffs. Problem is sandstone easily erodes. So now residents sit in their kitchens and watch the coast gradually moving closer to their homes. Some have already paid to move their homes further inland. So I wonder what language Barb Taylor would suggest these Canadians should use as they see climate change take their island away. They should calmly accept their fate because millions of years ago there was no ice protecting their island? Or 10,000 years ago their island was buried under a glacier? A Washington Post article summarizes this information – washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/canada-quebec-islands-climate-change/ Bob Batchelder Medicine Hat 8-7
“They should calmly accept their fate because millions of years ago there was no ice protecting their island? Or 10,000 years ago their island was buried under a glacier?”
By your own statement, this is a naturally occurring event. So what is it that you think you can do to subvert nature? I feel for these people but this is what nature does. Do you think we can change nature’s path by imposing a carbon tax? How exactly will that fix it?