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Kudos to the City of Duncan for declaring a local climate emergency at its July 15 council meeting, thus becoming the first Cowichan local government to join hundreds of local governments across Canada in recognizing the threat posed by climate disruption.

We are also pleased that the City of Duncan's climate emergency declaration sets in motion steps to mitigate and adapt to the crisis.

The following letter has been sent to all five Cowichan municipal governments - the CVRD, Duncan, North Cowichan, Ladysmith, and Lake Cowichan.

This summer will be a hard one in Cowichan. The water restrictions came early this year and we stand a real chance of the Cowichan River running almost dry. Fire crews are preparing for the worst.

Unfortunately, these conditions are what we’ll need to live with now. Climate disruption has altered our weather patterns and will continue to do so. Alternating floods and droughts, as well as accelerating sea level rise will bring hardship to our valley.

Some of this is sadly inevitable. There is a lag between putting more carbon into the atmosphere and feeling the impacts, so even if we stopped emissions today, we would still experience more negative effects.

But more emissions make it even worse, so it’s not like it’s “too late.” We must both stop our carbon pollution and adapt to more extreme conditions.

When most people think about reducing emissions, they think of things like pipelines and governments far away in Ottawa. That’s valid, but more than two-thirds of our emissions here in Cowichan are from transportation, and a big reason for that is due to the decisions our local councils have made, or not made, about development over many years.