Beware climate change and the TPP

Re: Trudeau, Obama discuss Pacific trade deal and ISIL, Nov. 20. Clearly U.S. President Barack Obama accepts the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal and expects Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do so, too.

However, it is impossible for me to believe that Obama is serious about climate change if he accepts the TPP. Bearing in mind Trudeau’s vaunted concern for the environment, I am fully expecting him to take a long, hard look at this trade deal. Having trade goods shipped back and forth across the ocean will increase the acidification of the ocean waters.

It’s a bad deal for the Canadian environment. It will plunge us into more mining exploration and raping of the land for raw resources to be shipped abroad. Our farming communities will be affected: Big farms which wastefully produce industrial meat will expand and the milk and poultry farmers will not be able to continue to provide local milk and poultry. The farms that survive will be locked into the industrial farming model. Furthermore, the Investors’ Rights clauses will make it impossible for us to protect our environment even if we finally decide to take environmental issues safely.

An alternative view of economics is called for. Fewer raw materials need to be mined, if we provide jobs processing them here in Canada. The more manufactured products we make right here, the more organic local food we grow, the less damage we do to the air, water and soil. How can anyone who cares about climate change accept the globalist/capitalist model represented by the TPP? Margaret Tyson, Ottawa