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A Canadian Mother’s Letter to Barack Obama
13 January 2009
Barack Obama,
President-elect,
Washington, D.C.
United States of America
So many Canadians hoped and prayed that you would be elected. So many Canadians now pin much of their hope for the future on you. So much of what happens in the United States influences Canada and we are so pleased that you will be leading your country.
Today we learned that you will be visiting Canada and meeting with our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, soon after you take office.
I write to ask that in this meeting you will try to impress on Mr. Harper the importance of making climate change a top priority, of making renewable energy a path to heal the economy and create jobs. We are so impressed that you recognize the importance of these issues in ensuring the safety and integrity of our children and future generations.
Our government insists on its right to continue developing the Alberta Tar Sands, which produces some of the environmentally dirtiest oil on the planet. Our government implements legislation and continues planning and building ethanol plants utilizing corn, and recently wheat, when food shortages in the world continue to increase. Our government does not have a plan or a stated goal for switching to renewable energy, nor does it have acceptable reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions. No matter how much many of our scientists and concerned citizens try to communicate the imminent dangers of global warming, our government does not seem to grasp the critical environmental situation facing our world today.
And so we look to you and hope; hope that you will confront this challenge once and for all, without delay, as you have stated; hope that you can talk to and influence our government to do the same; hope that you can lead the way in ‘green’ economic stimulus and development, a way Canada can ill afford not to follow.
Michelle Mech,
West Coast Climate Equity,
Salt Spring Island, B.C.
Canada
