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The following letter was sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

September 17, 2007

To The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Sir:

Politicians from around the globe have little time left to accept the scientific evidence that humans are causing dangerous changes to the climate and act to put a stop to it, the top United Nations official warned yesterday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that a summit Monday must lay the groundwork for an effective political response to the latest peer-reviewed research on the impact of increasing concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

“Science has made it quite clear, and we have been feeling the impact of global warming - already clearly felt,” Ban told reporters. “We have resources and we have technologies; the only thing lacking is political will. Before it is too late, we must take action.”

(Montreal Gazette, September 19, 2007)

This pronouncement from the UN's Secretary-General reminds us of various dramatic and apparently climate-related events of the waning summer. Wide-spread flooding in Britain. The forests of Greece up in flames and causing deaths. More scorching heat elsewhere in Europe, sometimes lasting as though it would never end.

The United States was hardly faring better. In August 2007, a severe heat wave struck large parts of the central, southeast and eastern United States so badly that more than 50 deaths were attributed to excessive heat. Many all-time highs were recorded. The Southeast experienced a severe drought that started early in the year and exacerbated the August heat.

For Canadians, the effects of global warming were and are all too visible in the North. As to what that means farther south, a scientific report addressed to the Alberta government in 2002 noted, “... It is very likely that drought patterns will continue ... amplified by evaporation due to climate warming and forcing Canada to import, not export wheat.” Food and water shortages for livestock, costing tens of billions of dollars as irrigation systems dried, were also foreseen. The forestry industry was expected to suffer badly, too. (The pine beetle infestation was yet to come.)

What, then, must be done for Canada to pull its weight in the struggle against climate change? First, I think it is urgent to begin cracking what may be the toughest nut of all, namely the Athabaska oil sands, Canada's largest single contributor to greenhouse gases. Details concerning oil sands operations are provided by many sources, but suffice it to say that the Athabasca oil fields are as gargantuan as their appetites and footprints on our ecology. In total, they are, for example, larger than Florida and twice the size of New Brunswick. They consume natural gas at rates that emit untold quantities of carbon dioxide. They befoul and rapidly deplete water supplies from northern Alberta's rivers that ever-rising temperatures, due to global warming, are drastically shrinking anyway.

Only after the last tree has been cut; only after the last river has been poisoned; only after the last fish has been caught - only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. (Cree prophesy)

Mr Harper, I respectfully submit, we cannot allow that prophesy to come true.

Yours truly,

Edward Hugh Myers
Montreal, Quebec