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The Citizen, 2019-10-03, Page 5Other Views The enemy of climate change is us Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense Last week at an early-morning meeting of the Blyth Business Improvement Area (BIA), members discussed the perceived parking problems of Blyth. The meeting, which included North Huron Council and staff representation, focused on the fact that downtown Blyth does have a parking problem: there isn’t enough space for all users of the downtown core to find parking near where they want to be. While I did participate in the discussion, suggesting, among other things, paid parking lots close to downtown where people could be sure to find the space they need if they’re willing to contribute to the coffers that keep our roads paved, I neglected to mention the one major parking concern I have in Blyth: people abusing private parking. Before The Citizen’s Blyth office, and its parent company North Huron Publishing Company, moved into our current spot, we had no designated parking spots. Whether we were on the east or west side of Queen Street, everyone who worked for the company had to park where they could and walk to the office. Sometimes, that meant parking at the Anglican Church and walking two blocks to get to the office. Other times that meant people completely ignoring signs that clearly stated we needed a couple parking spots free to both receive and send out our weekly newspaper. It was frustrating, but, at the end of the day, we couldn’t do anything except vent about it because we didn’t have parking spots. When we had to move to our new office, however, we came into possession, as part of our rental, four private parking spaces at the back of the building. They were divvied up among the staff and, fortunately for me, I ended up getting one of them. Why? Well because I’m one of the few employees who may need to dash out of here at a moment’s notice and having to run two blocks or more to my car could make the difference between getting a great photo or getting nothing. At the time, I was elated. Not having to drive up and down the street during gatherings at the Blyth Legion or during Blyth Festival matinees or other events at Memorial Hall seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Unfortunately, that isn’t how things shook out. The reality is that, during those Blyth Legion get-togethers (and I don’t specifically mean Legion events, I mean events held at the Legion) and Blyth Festival matinees, or even sometimes Blyth Festival night shows, if I’m working in the office late enough, I’d still be left hunting for a parking spot. Apparently, the idea of private parking is still alien to some. We haven’t been in our office a year and there have already been a number of occasions, probably more than half a dozen, where people going to events downtown have driven down the alley behind our office (which is public property) and blatantly parked in spaces that are obviously private. Why do I say obviously? Well for starters, our parking lot is paved and the alley is not. Next is the fact that the main street buildings are all different depths, so it should be obvious that the spaces behind the building go with the associated building to the road. Finally, we’ve got a beautiful fence lining our office’s backyard, which in my mind means this is a private space. Some people may say I’m finicky or spoiled, but people parking (or driving) on private land has always been a pet peeve of mine. Take, for example, the years after I first bought my house in Blyth. Every year during the annual reunion of the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association, if there was any moisture whatsoever in my lawn, there would be ruts from people driving their golf carts to and from garage sales my neighbours were holding. Now technically, I know that most of that damage likely occurred on the road allowance and belongs to the municipality, but the municipality didn’t have to pay to get its mower blades sharpened because they kept digging into the ruts. I realize this makes me an actual old man yelling get off my lawn, but, seriously, get off my lawn. To parrot a younger version of myself, that kind of disrespect for clearly illustrated lines is the start of the deconstruction of our society. When people stop adhering to those social contracts that we all enter into (don’t park in my space, don’t force small talk or pass gas in an elevator, keep to the right side of alleys and halls, give up your seat on the subway when an elder or differently-abled person needs it, hold the door open for people, etc.), society stops functioning as it should. Back to the BIA meeting: does Blyth have a parking problem? I don’t think so. I think we have great organizations that bring people downtown and, whether or not those people are patronizing the shops, it certainly makes the village look busy, which will help us all in the long run. Blyth does, however, have a social contract problem, apparently. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019. PAGE 5. Worth fighting for Like many around the world, I’ve found myself tremendously inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. Her school strike for climate, which began as a solo protest outside of the Swedish parliament, has inspired millions to take action in an effort to change attitudes and save the planet. Thunberg has mobilized millions of people, young and old, and inspired millions more, but it was her speech late last month at the United Nations Climate Action Summit that really seems to have ignited a movement. Some are calling it this generation’s “I have a dream” speech, saying it will go down as one of the most important moments in recent decades. “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean, yet you come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg said in her scathing criticism directly aimed at the world leaders. She would go on to accuse them of caring more about making money and “fairytales of eternal economic growth” than the threat climate change poses to the world. It’s easy to be inspired by Thunberg. At 16 years old, she is using a tremendous platform to make the world a better place. And she’s right. Not only about the climate and the inaction of our world leaders, but that it shouldn’t be her, a 16-year-old from Sweden who lives with Asperger syndrome. In a room full of the most powerful people in the world, it is a regular teenager capturing the hearts and minds of the world, moving forward while the rest of the world, in many ways, regresses. Watching this young person endure constant scrutiny and cruelty at the hands of millions of right-leaning adults is when the power of what she’s doing really hits home. She doesn’t have to do what she’s doing, but she keeps at it, despite being criticized and mocked by pigs like Donald Trump, Maxime Bernier, the soulless trash on Fox News and the hordes of uneducated, impressionable Twitter users. She has been called mentally ill, a puppet, a liar and even been connected to the Hitler youth, but still she endures, speaking to world leaders with a courage few adults possess. As I’ve watched Thunberg, my mind has drawn parallels to Terry Fox, a uniquely Canadian hero that I feel the world might understand a little more now with Thunberg. Years ago, I tried to explain Fox to my American relatives. After only Tommy Douglas, the father of universal healthcare, Fox has endured as the greatest Canadian hero. A young man suffering from cancer, he set out to run across the country alone, raising money for research and treatment along the way. He didn’t make it, but the fact that a young person facing such adversary could change the world the way he did made him someone we could all hold close to our hearts. And there really weren’t any other people like Fox in the world until Thunberg came along. She, like Fox, is challenging us all to be better. Their day-to-day challenges may differ; Fox battled his illness and the physical demands of running the equivalent of a marathon every day, not to mention the early days of being run off the road before people knew about the Marathon of Hope, while Thunberg faces scrutiny and persistent barbs from those who deny climate change science. If Fox ran in the days of Twitter, users probably would call him a puppet of the left. Now the rest of the world knows what it’s like to have a young person willing to risk everything to make the world a better place, no matter what it might cost them personally. Given that hundreds of thousands of Canadians took to the street in climate change marches last Friday, it might seem strange to say that the biggest hindrance to fighting climate change is democracy. Politicians have taken a terrible beating from activists for taking too little action to ward off the production of carbon dioxide that is blamed for climate change, but in a democracy politicians can’t lead where their people aren’t prepared to follow. If dynamic, teenaged climate crusader Greta Thunberg had managed to get through to Chinese President Xi Jinping with her impassioned challenge to world leaders at the United Nations last week, he could force his country to make radical changes. It’s not so easy for democratic leaders. We can hope that our leaders can inspire change, but if they try to force it, they’ll pay at the polls. Way back in the 1970s, U.S. President Jimmy Carter was a visionary about the environment. He gave subsidies to the wind and solar power industries, and poured money into research for alternative fuels. He even installed solar panels on the White House. Carter was defeated after one term. Certainly a downturn in the economy and the taking hostage of American embassy employees in Iran were major factors, but some observers feel the key was Ronald Reagan’s attitude that Americans didn’t need to suffer any sort of limitation. Perhaps symbolically, Reagan soon had the solar panels taken down. Forty years later, the current U.S. President was elected at least partially because he promised to reopen coal mines. Burning coal is one of the greatest contributors to climate change. Closer to home, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been a noisy opponent of the federal government’s carbon tax, including those dishonest stickers on gas pumps that point out the tax is costing people more at the pump, but doesn’t bother admitting people are getting a rebate from the feds. Ford has argued Ontario has already cut carbon emissions, which it has, thanks to the previous Liberal government. A few weeks ago the old Nanticoke coal-fired electrical generating station was demolished in a spectacular series of explosions. The Liberals had closed that plant, greatly reducing Ontario’s carbon emissions. They were able to do that because of new gas-fired generating stations as well as wind and solar farms. There were many irritants that helped almost wipe out the Liberals in the 2018 election, but the higher electrical rates that paid for those alternatives were no small contributor. And let’s remember that even when the Liberals retained power in the 2014 election, they were decimated across rural Ontario, with opposition to wind farms being a major factor. Canadians say they’re worried about climate change. In a recent poll 77 per cent of respondents said they either strongly or partially agreed with the statement “The world is facing a climate emergency and unless greenhouse gas emissions fall dramatically in the next few years global warming will become extremely dangerous.” In the same poll, 50 per cent of people said the current federal government hasn’t done enough to fight climate change. Yet as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was being castigated by crowds at Friday’s marches and scolded by Thunberg at her private meeting with him, seven provincial governments oppose his climate tax which will add to the cost of the gasoline and home heating fuels. If Canadians care so much about climate change, why would Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer dare to promise to repeal the carbon tax? Perhaps the answer lies in another poll. Earlier this year in a CBC survey, only a quarter of Canadians asked said they’d be willing to pay the equivalent of a Netflix subscription (roughly $10 a month) to fight climate change. We’re all in favour of fighting climate change if it means no sacrifice. Canadians are like people who say they want to lose weight but aren’t willing to change their diet or do more exercise. Friday’s marches might give hope that the next generation will care more, yet in London there were an estimated 3,000 climate protestors in a city with 28,000 students at Western and 21,000 at Fanshawe College. By contrast, on Saturday there were an estimated 20,000 at FOCO, the unauthorized drunken street party which city and university officials had gone to extraordinary lengths to try to discourage. If Canadians cared enough about climate change to pay a price for change, and make politicians pay a political price if they didn’t make drastic changes that might cost us dollars and convenience, then we would get the change we claim to want. Unfortunately, by the time we become desperate enough to accept the cost of change it may be too late to avert a climate disaster. Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk BIA: you missed a parking problem