ºClimate Day

The Age of Stupid or The Age of the Green Transition?

// September 23rd, 2009 // Blog

Imagine. It’s 2020. Where are you? How old will you be?

In 2009 world leaders failed to come up with a climate change treaty that committed to science-based targets on greenhouse gas emissions. By now, greenhouse gas emissions should be down by 40% below 1990 levels to avoid runaway global warming. They are not.

The Canadian tar sands helped fuel China’s burgeoning economy and an America addicted to oil. Promises of ‘clean coal’ and carbon sequestration have failed completely or have not lived up to the ‘green’ solution that industry claimed they would be.

Killer hurricanes are happening more and more frequently. African countries are buckling from intense heat, drought, disease and dried up reservoirs. Countries still committed to the carbon economy are waging war over dwindling oil reserves. Millions of migrants are living in squalor in refugee camps near western boundaries.

The worst is yet to come. And you know it. Do you have kids? How old are they?

There’s nothing you can do now to stop runaway global warming. There is nothing you or anyone else can do to prevent the steady demise of entire species. They or the species that they depend on cannot tolerate rapid climate change. They are dying and our species depends on them for survival. We’re dying, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it.

You are like the ghost of Jacob Marley in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, throwing money in vain at a homeless woman. But you can’t warn anyone to not follow your footsteps. It’s too late.

It’s 2009. There’s still time.

Fight for this. Fight hard. Give it all you’ve got. You are living on planet earth during the most critical time in human history. World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen this December to set a course. What will it be? Commitment to development of a green and sustainable economy that will see greenhouse gas emissions cut by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050? Or will it be more investment in oil extraction and production? More coal plants? More lax environmental regulations? ‘Growth’ at all costs?

Yesterday we organizers and supporters of C-Day: Fill the Hill joined hundreds of thousands of people in a global wakeup call on climate change, organized through AVAAZ. The UN is currently meeting in New York to hash out the climate change treaty that is expected to be signed in Copenhagen this December. We convened at Toronto’s Yonge & Dundas Square for a flashmob that involved making lots of noise, recording the demonstration and calling the Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment to support science-based targets on climate change. We spoke to major media like CTV and CityTV to explain what we were doing and why. Then we sent our photos to AVAAZ, which with thousands of others were sent to the UN in time for their climate talks. We capped the day off by watching a screening of the Age of Stupid, an apt description of our times if our leaders produce a watered down climate change treaty.

We can’t let that happen. Now we set our attention to October 24, the International Day of Climate Action.

Join us on Parliament Hill on that day. Help us fill it and send a clear message to all Parliament members that we mean business on climate change. Take the train or bus, bike, walk or carpool. Your presence is required. Tell your descendants that you showed up. When it mattered the most, you showed up.

Call or email your MP. Tell them you want Canada to commit to science-based targets on climate change. Determine you own carbon footprint through a carbon calculator and commit to significantly reducing it over the next few years. Tell your friends and family what you are doing.

Fight for this. Fight for your descendants. Fight for your own future. Fight to not say – “Oh my God. It’s too late. My God, what have we done?”