By ROY WOOD

The issues discussed at this week’s Osoyoos Lake Water Science Forum are a microcosm of the problems facing our planet as it struggles to survive global climate change, Tom Siddon told the closing session Friday afternoon.

Siddon, a director of the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen, a former science professor and one-time federal secretary of state for science and technology, referred to a conference presentation from Dr. Meade Krosby “underscoring the irrefutable evidence that climate change is a reality.”

Krosby is a climate research scientist at the University of Washington.

The three-day water science forum brought together specialists, scientists, local government officials and others from Canada and the U.S.

Issues discussed included climate variation, cross-border water supplies, fisheries recovery, the effects of fire on water quality, drought, water conservation, invasive species and more.

The Osoyoos forums are held once every four years, with earlier ones in 2011 and 2007.

Siddon said one the hardest tasks facing him and others concerned with the effects of climate change is “to try to change the minds of people in government” to take action.

Lamenting the difficulty of altering the views at the upper levels of government and elsewhere, Siddon said, “I heard a candidate for Parliament on CBC radio denying that climate change has anything to do with human activity on the planet.

“He is running for the incumbent party in North Okanagan and I’m told he is likely to win,” said Siddon. The Conservative candidate in North Okanagan-Shuswap is Mel Arnold.
“I don’t want to talk about current (Canadian) leadership,” he said, “but I thank the courage of U.S. President (Barrack) Obama in coming face to face, unlike his predecessor, to the reality of climate change. He said in his inaugural speech we have to deal with a warming planet.”