InnisfilToday received the following letter to the editor from reader Pekka Reinio on the subject of global warming.
Across Ontario, we are all suffering the consequences of global warming. Recent summers have brought extended heat waves, droughts, and wildfires.
Global warming is also wreaking havoc throughout our winter months.
In Ottawa last year, the beloved Rideau Canal Skateway failed to open for the first time in its 53-year history because of warm weather.
Closer to home, friends, family and neighbours involved in Simcoe County’s tourism industry such as snowmobiling and ice fishing, know first-hand the devastating impact global warming is having on their bottom line.
Those of us who love to ski or skate are also feeling the impacts of our warming planet.
Ontario’s skiing industry, with revenues of $178 million in 2016/17, is being hit hard by global warming as well.
Like many Simcoe County residents, my family had planned on a skiing “staycation” over the Christmas break. But with wet, rainy conditions and temperatures well above zero degrees both day and night, our ski plans had to be shelved.
The livelihood for many seasonal employees at ski hills across the region are under immediate threat such as in 2007, “When unseasonably warm temperatures delayed the opening of Blue Mountain ski resort, and more than 1,300 employees were temporarily laid off.”
Global warming is ushering in a painful future for businesses that rely on winter tourism.
“Each year, snow comes later and later,” said Nathalie Dandoy, manager of environment and sustainability at Mont-Tremblant. As studies show, global warming could render all of Ontario's five dozen ski resorts economically nonviable.
“The ability of individual ski areas to absorb additional snowmaking costs and remain economically viable,” is to be seen.
This is a bigger story than the skiing industry. Ontario’s entire ecosystem, our economy, our health and the future of our children is under threat by global warming.
For our political leaders at all levels of government, the time to act is now with a swift transition to a low-carbon economy to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The future of our children, depends on the actions we take today.
Pekka Reinio
Barrie