Even the people who do not believe in a changing climate are already paying for it. Canada-wide, weather or climate related costs for each of the 10-million households in our country is about $250 per year in additional insurance premiums. That is up significantly over the last decade or two, by a factor of four to five times.
In B.C., with our population of 5.15 million and with about half of those of us working and paying taxes, for wildfire fighting cost alone, not including the loss of human lives, animals, houses and lost revenue due to evacuations, lost timber etc. the cost to each taxpayer is about $200 per year. For some people $450 is only one days wages, but for others it can be a whole week’s worth of income.
My question to all of us, how much does the cost of each of us have to be extra per year, before we collectively change things?
A lot of us are concerned about climate change, according to surveys, but very few of us want to spend money to actually DO something to fight it!
The sad thing is, combatting climate change would create jobs, and save us a lot of money in the long run.
Martin Holzbauer,
Thornhill, B.C.