Will you be able to look future generations in the eye?

By Letter to the Editor on November 16, 2019.

The Nov. 6 Medicine Hat News had a letter on page B4 from Ms. Taylor. It also had, on page A2, an article about a letter published in the science journal Bioscience. That Bioscience letter is easily found on the Bioscience website. I urge all readers to read both letters, which are about human-caused climate change. The Bioscience letter has been signed by 11,258 scientists, from 153 countries. After reading both letters, which do you think is more believable? Why? Ask yourself why 11,258 professionals would stake their professional reputations on their signing of the Bioscience letter.

If you were the government of any of those 153 countries, which of the two letters would provide reliable evidence to help you try to accomplish the greatest benefit for the most people in your country and elsewhere on Earth, short-term, medium-term, and long-term? If a government were to ignore one of the two letters, ignoring which one would result in the lowest risk, short-term, medium-term, and long-term?

Twenty years from now, if either your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren ask you which letter you stood for, and why, will you be able to look them straight in the eye and defend your choice?

I will stand corrected if I am wrong about the source of this quote, but I believe it was Chief Seattle, a Suquamish and Duwamish chief, who said “We do not inherit the Earth from our parents. We have it on loan from our children.”

Gregory R. Cote

Irvine, Alta