The environment is quite important to the planet and to us because without the resources and air that we get from it, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. Canada does a fairly decent job at keeping things clean by recycling and not tossing trash everywhere. There are individuals who do actively pollute or destroy the environment by not caring where they leave their garbage or what they burn, but overall, we do fairly well. There will always be room for improvement though.
Where the issues come from are the lesser developed areas that are mainly in Africa, India, and China. In certain areas within those places, you can see rivers that are literally full of trash that flows downstream and into the oceans or lakes. When you see pictures of tons of plastics and other garbage in the water or from a clean-up, nearly all of that comes from those types of areas and not Canada. Having companies stop using plastic straws and bags is just virtue signalling because we are not the issue when it comes to ocean pollution and the plastic packaging vastly outweighs the amount of bags and straws consumers use and throw out. Bags can and are reused and recycled and plastic straws can also be recycled. The reusable bags out there aren’t as good for the environment as some people may believe because some are also made out of plastic. While they are reusable (as are regular plastic bags), there is now becoming a surplus of those as well because people buy them when they need them and eventually have too many and then have to get rid of them. What companies should focus on is getting plastic bags that are biodegradable so that the people can reuse them and once the bag’s life comes to an end and isn’t properly disposed of it will simply decompose, unlike the heavier reusable ones. When it comes to paper straws, we have to think about both the health of the person and where the paper materials come from. Paper straws disintegrate fairly quickly and that means that people will be ingesting parts of those straws and what types of effects can that have on people if they use those straws on a more regular or frequent basis? Paper usually comes from trees with other sources becoming more popular. How many trees do we have to cut down in order to make all of these straws? And isn’t carbon dioxide supposed to be a bad thing for the environment? Cutting down trees that take out carbon dioxide from the air to make straws seems to me to be not the smartest idea because either we need trees or carbon dioxide isn’t as bad as “they” are saying. As for carbon dioxide, it is actually a very good thing to have because that’s what plants need to survive and if we keep cutting our emissions to zero, the plants will die and so will we because they produce the oxygen we breathe. Some greenhouses actually pump carbon dioxide into their buildings to give their plants an extra boost for growing. There have been times in history when the carbon dioxide levels were higher than it is now and life flourished. The world’s carbon dioxide levels are 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is up from 0.03%. This is one of the main reasons why the Earth is greener than it ever has been. If carbon dioxide is to be reduced, we can’t reduce it too low because at only 0.02% plants will start to die. While we don’t want to intentionally pollute the atmosphere, we also don’t want to reduce emissions too much or we will run into problems ourselves. We’re already struggling with pollinating what we have because of a lack of bees. Imagine how much worse it will be when plants start to die off because they can’t survive with carbon dioxide levels that are too low. Specifically, in Canada, we are already carbon negative because of all the trees we have and the technology we use to reduce pollution. If we are carbon negative, why the talk about going green and carbon taxes? Money. Not environmental reasons, money.
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About MeIn September 2021, I campaigned as an Independent candidate in Canada's 44th Federal Election for the riding of Huron-Bruce. I placed 5th with a total of 509 votes (0.9%). It is my intention to run as an Independent candidate in Canada's 45th Federal Election in 2025. Archives
February 2025
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