Tag climate crisis

Greta Thunberg Shares Op-Ed Calling Out Trudeau’s Climate Hypocrisy – HP

Liberal MPs Urge Trudeau To Reject Massive Alberta Oilsands Mine – HP

Trudeau’s continued failure to act substantively on climate change has to end. While pretending to care about climate action, Trudeau and the Liberals continue to act in ways that can not be justified – and they are rightly being called out, by environmentalists, and even by some of their own MPs.

”If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity.”

(Bill McKibben, quoted by Greta Thunberg)

HP

So, to hold this government to account, I am suggesting contacting your MP (whether Liberal or other), and the PM’s office, asking for an immediate commitment to the following:

1) Immediate end to all fossil fuel subsidies, no new fossil fuel or nuclear projects and a rapid phase out of existing projects, with all funds put towards clean projects/sustainability.

2) Support for immediate implementation of Proportional Representation, to give the Green Party and others the voice that they rightfully deserve at the table.

3) Substantial climate targets – with annual and 5-year goals – that are in line with the best science. A theoretical aim to be climate neutral by 2050 is meaningless. If they need something easy to grasp, how about this? 1% reduction/month = approx 10% per year, which then leads to carbon neutral in 10 years, and carbon negative after that. 🙂

I have heard, too often, from a few Liberals (those that I have spoken to about this, which is obviously not a representative sample), that anything that they do has to be considered “good enough”, and we shouldn’t complain, because others – parties or provinces or countries or whoever they can find – are doing less. However, doing the right thing is not a race to the bottom, there is a lot of room for improvement, and it needs to start now. 🙂

The Guardian: ‘It’s a crisis, not a change’: the six Guardian language changes on climate matters.

Important and valuable notes from the Guardian on their editorial choices, which is also highly relevant to the language that we all use when addressing the climate crisis.

Here are a couple of examples:

“climate science denier” or “climate denier” to be used instead of “climate sceptic”

The OED defines a sceptic as “a seeker of the truth; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite conclusions”. Most “climate sceptics”, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, deny climate change is happening, or is caused by human activity, so ‘denier’ is more accurate.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian-language-changes-climate-environment

and another one…

 Use “fish populations” instead of “fish stocks”

This change emphasises that fish do not exist solely to be harvested by humans – they play a vital role in the natural health of the oceans.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/16/guardian-language-changes-climate-environment

And, by extension, the same thing applies to other aspects of nature. Creation care, and a liveable climate, requires a change in how we view nature – from yet another consumable, to something that we genuinely are trying our best to care for in a sustainable manner.

I think that language plays an important role in how we frame the world, and our choices within our local and global context. Accurate representation is even more important when we are dealing with a crisis, and hard choices are required of all of us.

Thanks to the Guardian for their excellent journalism – on this and other issues. 🙂