Hotter Than I Should Be

It seems that the world may be slowly waking up to the reality of climate change…

In an effort to draw attention to energy consumption, the whole of France participated in a five minute power switch-off, during which the power grid operator reported a decrease in consumption that was equal to 1% of the national consumption. The Eiffel Tower, normally ablaze with 20 000 bulbs, joined in the national campaign by switching off power at 7:55pm. Several other European cities followed suit, participating in country-wide blackouts.

Our own Stephen Harper, who, five years ago, wrote a letter “downplaying climate change”* and then concluded that the greenhouse gas reduction targets outlined in the Kyoto Protocol were unattainable, is now acknowledging what a pressing issue climate change is becoming. George Bush even mentioned the environment in his State of the Union Address by introducing the Clear Skies legislation.

I saw David Suzuki (see his website under Websites That Might Just Change Your Life to your right) speak this time last year about the state of our earth. He spoke of a document that was signed by 100 scientists “greater than [him]” that was submitted to world leaders 10 years ago (I may have some of those numbers wrong – we’re going on my memory here) that outlined the urgent need for the world’s energy consumption to be decelerated. And if we did not do something about the amount of greenhouse gases we were putting into the atmosphere, it was only a matter of a decade or two before most of the earth was uninhabitable. The document was largely ignored at the time.

So why the attention now?

I think it started with An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary about our planet’s shaky future. It was a film by an American for Americans (some of the largest energy consumers in the world) – it was one of their own telling his country where they were going wrong.

And then much of eastern North America experienced a mild December and beginning of January. They were playing golf in P.E.I. Blossoms came out on the trees in Central Park. Meanwhile, the west coast, normally accustomed to mild, rainy winters, experienced some of the worst snowstorms in living memory. And everyone got a little bit uneasy, Al Gore’s warning still echoing in their heads.

What will be interesting to see is if people begin to make changes – even small ones as are listed on David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge – changing lightbulbs, getting out of the car, turning down the heat by 2 degrees. Will people begin to think about alternate forms of transportation, moving closer to their work, eating meat-free meals with locally grown produce more often?

Or will we allow our cars lots of idle time to warm up in this colder-than-usual week in January, all the while mumbling, “Climate change? What climate change?”

*Toronto Star, January 31st, 2007