Young people have every right to demand change
I don’t usually make blanket statements, with the exception when I come across climate deniers who universally put their mouths in drive and their brains in neutral.
So, seeing two letters from John Walker in this paper mocking young people for wanting a better world then the one he will leave behind soon enough, given his age of 83, makes him worthy of rebuke. That isn’t being rude, it is being truthful.
It is beyond comprehension to myself as a baby boomer that anyone could express such selfish thinking that only by maintaining the status quo that got us into this worldwide mess is the only right one. He’s had his, so to Hades with the world that comes after him, which is what he is really saying to the young people demanding climate action.
If most Canadians had agreed with him in the election then Andrew Scheer, who preached to the converted over protecting fossil fuel and Tar Sands sludge of Alberta above all else, would be prime minister now. How galling it must be for John Walker to know that people who think like him caused people to hold their noses and voted to keep that small minded thinking out of power. Long live the carbon tax!
Society is changing, as it must change, in order to make our continued existence sustainable. Mr. Walker expresses an appalling level of defeatism that young people — and intelligent, informed citizens of all ages — cannot accomplish great things when they share a united goal.
And what greater legacy can we all leave this planet then a sustainable economy not based on fossil fuels. Oceans and landfills not full of plastics, habitat protection for all creatures that we share this one world we ever know, stopping unchecked urban sprawl and resource exploitation which has led us to the 5th Great Extinction for which humanity is solely to blame.
If you have nothing constructive to add, Mr. Walker, butt out of the conversation, as the young people have every right to demand change as it is their future on the line not yours.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City