July 24, 2019: Queen Elizabeth welcomes then-newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, during an audience in Buckingham PalaceVICTORIA JONES/AFP/Getty Images
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How British is Brexit?
Re Johnson Vows To Step Up Brexit Talks With Brussels To Quell Opposition (Aug. 30): King Charles I, who believed in his Divine Right to rule, arbitrarily dissolved Parliament to serve his own purposes. He was eventually tried, convicted and executed for high treason in January, 1649. Perhaps Britain’s “King” Boris will suffer a similar fate in the next election …
Doug Green, Toronto
Your unequivocal editorial, Democracy Is Brexit’s First Casualty (Aug. 29), was not only spot on, but it was a delight to read.
Fantasy Island? The Ministry of Ironic Contradictions? Vacations over the cliffs at Dover? Thank you for that. And you’re right, by the way, about Boris Johnson’s prorogation plan.
It’s wrong, it’s undemocratic, and, by George, it’s not British.
Nigel Brachi, Edmonton
Climate roulette
Bjorn Lomborg, in his column Global Warming Is A Problem, But So Are Climate Doomsayers (Opinion, Aug. 24), reiterates a statement by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the cost of climate change by 2070 will only be equivalent to between 0.2 per cent and 2 per cent of average income (i.e., nothing much to worry about).
However, the IPCC report also states that “losses are more likely than not to be greater, rather than smaller, than this range.”
And it goes on to say that many of the studies did not account for “tipping points” (the scariest of which will likely be due to methane and CO2 from the thawing tundra). Also, the IPCC noted that it only dealt with a 2 C increase (given the planet’s “progress,” 3 C seems far more likely).
Prof. Lomborg must have read these sentences, yet he cited only what suited his ideological stance.
Mind you, I’ll still applaud him for his closing advice: “A commensurate response would be to invest much more in researching and developing cheaper carbon-free energy sources that can eventually outcompete fossil fuels.”
Evan Bedford, Red Deer, Alta.
There is a possibility Bjorn Lomborg is correct that the future is bright. And it may be that the vast majority of climatologists who fear an existential crisis are wrong.
The communities facing devastation due to rising water levels may be misguided. The tree-hugging insurance companies that report record insurance claims due to unprecedented environmental disasters may be just seeking sympathy. The loss of biodiversity, the shrinking ice caps, the inexorable eutrophication of our lakes, the spread northward of disease-spreading mosquitoes may all have nothing to do with climate change.
But what if there is even a one-in-six chance Mr. Lomborg and other climate skeptics are wrong?
Should we be playing Russian roulette with our future?
Robert Eisenberg, Board of directors, Environmental Defence
Countdown: June 2, 2022
Re Calculus On Math Tests (Aug. 28): May I suggest questions for the teacher math proficiency test?
1. How many cascading nickels are there in 648 carbon-tax dollars?
2. How much is a buck a beer?
3. How many days are there until the next provincial election?
Bill Kummer, Waterloo, Ont.
Canada’s design history needs protection
As one of the founders and first director of programming of the DX Design Exchange, I was saddened to read Brendan Cormier’s article last Saturday, Designed For Failure (Opinion, Aug. 24), about the deaccessioning of the DX’s collection of 300 objects.
The DX’s original mandate was twofold: to promote the value of the practise of design and innovation in Canada as a resource for prosperity, and to preserve and celebrate the culture of Canadian design and its designers through objects from the past and present.
To achieve the second mandate, individuals and organizations donated or sourced objects of importance to the history of design in Canada. This was done under the assumption that these objects would be preserved and protected for study and enjoyment.
The DX has had a difficult and spotty history of delivering on the second part of its mandate. It has done a good job at programming and renting its space for events, but it’s failed in its duty to preserve and celebrate the history of Canadian design through the objects entrusted to it.
Mr. Cormier accurately puts the blame for this on a lack of leadership at the executive and board levels. While they focused on space rentals and other (important) programs, where was the vision, expertise or passion when it came to protecting Canada’s design heritage?
With the collection dispersed, Canada will have no specialized and comprehensive collective memory of its design history.
Lee Jacobson, Toronto
It needs to be acknowledged that design is a tough sell in a museum, far less popular than dinosaurs, fashion and celebrity exhibitions: Christian Dior and Mary Quant are the current crowd pleasers at Brendan Cormier’s own institution, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Low attendance was a defining fact of the DX – save, for example, when the late Princess Diana’s gowns were on display, and when the public could view the “Iron Throne” and other props from HBO’s blockbuster series.
The creation of DX resulted in the making of an important collection of Canadian design. The collection’s dispersal to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, and York and Carleton universities (both have design-studies programs) represents the continuation of the necessary work of documenting and preserving the material culture of industrial Canada, and new chapters in the study of Canadian design history.
However lamentable, the deaccessioning affords new opportunities for curators to interpret Canadian design in ways that are – in Mr. Cormier’s words – “meaningful and impactful.”
Rachel Gotlieb, Michael Prokopow, Former curators, Design Exchange
Choose … something
Re Grits, Tories Release Fall Campaign Slogans (Aug. 27): The Liberals are going with “Choose Forward” as their campaign slogan. They had to choose something.
Wait.
No … “Forgive and Forget” is so overused.
Clay Atcheson, North Vancouver
‘What do you see?’
Re Ways Of Seeing In Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Aug. 24): Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? has been the favourite book of my grandson Henry since he was a baby.
At age 6, he still asks for it occasionally. How it got missed when his dad was a child I do not know.
Thanks to your article, I look forward, a few years hence, to discussing ways of seeing (perhaps with visual aids from René Magritte) with Henry and his artistic mother.
Nick Ketchum, Cardinal, Ont.
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