I saw the Al Gore movie recently, the follow-up to his first warning on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.
It was showing at the Towne Cinema, courtesy of Okanagan Screen Arts.
I can’t believe that a movie of that importance was only half full for the first showing.
A movie like that can’t help but make you think that there should be something we all need to do to change things.
We live in a privileged area, of beautiful lakes, forests, with recreation and excitement all year long. There’s boating, biking, boarding, swimming, fresh fruit, wine, whisky…the list goes on and on.
So what are we doing to maintain it? What are our politicians doing to maintain it?
MP Mel Arnold’s Conservative government fired the scientists telling the government that something needed to be done. A head-in-the-sand move.
The incumbent Liberal government is flip-flopping on most campaign promises, with a show of support at the Paris Accord on climate change.
MLA Eric Foster and the Liberals didn’t say or do much, except to push fossil fuel across indigenous lands and allegedly make back pocket profits to get the deals done. Alternative energy was never a topic with Ms. Clark.
The NDP/Green Party seems to be sorting out life and leadership and not really accomplishing much, except passing Site C dam, a dam that will not generate as much electricity as strategically placed alternative energy sources for less than the constantly rising costs of Site C.
Before all you fossilites fire up your letters to me calling me a hypocrite for paddling my kayak, driving my car, and flying to points unknown in a big jet plane, I have to ask what are we doing to reduce emissions?
Before climate change we used to live in hot and sunny famous Okanagan sunshine, packing Kal Beach. What happened to our weather and where are the solar panels that we should have to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Why are we still using plastic bags in our grocery stores? Why is our plastic recycling so hard to get accomplished?
We can stick our heads in the sand or we can do something, anything, one step at a time. We can never cut fossil fuels out totally, but we can reduce emissions and use less plastic. We need to start before the world is totally ruined for those following us.
Greg Hesford
I found Martin Vegt’s recent letter interesting about Jerusalem becoming the capital of Israel, but I disagree with some of his comments. U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t name Jerusalem the capital of Israel, but merely stated his plan in the future to move their U.S. embassy there. The last few presidents have alluded to making this move but have failed to follow through.
The Roman Empire changed the name to Palestine in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel and Judea. The Ottoman Empire (1517-1917) described the land south of Syria as Palestine. Ottomans and Arabs who lived there referred to it as Southern Syria.
The International Press after the First World War referred to the Jews as Palestinian, not the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration (April 1920) at the historical San Remo Conference establishes the territorial rights of the Jewish people under international law in respect to the land of Israel (formerly called Palestine).
Sovereignty entitlements remain in force to support the legal claims to the land by international law. Before the San Remo Conference there did not exist a single independent Arab Nation. Therefore, the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish State is exactly equal to the legitimacy of any of the Arab nation states as 99 per cent of the land was allocated to the Arab people.
The Council of the League of Nations approved the partition for Jordan in 1922. West of the Jordan River remained the property of the Jewish people. It is essential then that we protect the truth of the formal recognition of Israel as the Jewish National homeland, that it became international law in San Remo as part of the Treaty of Sevres then signed unanimously by 51 member nations of the League of Nations.
In Jesus’ day, his country was called Judea and the overall designation for the land was Israel. If the Arabs (Palestinians) are truly interested in peace as they claim, they first have to acknowledge the truth that Israel is a sovereign nation and not an occupier of the land, and has every right to name Jerusalem or any other city as their capital.
Patricia Renyard