Just published in The Tyee: What climate campaigners can learn from hockey
Although you may have already seen this post that I wrote last month, it was just published today in the excellent online news publication The Tyee, based in B.C.
Click here to read the article on The Tyee web site. Here’s an excerpt:
How do we reconcile what science is telling us about the link between repeated head trauma and CTE with the fact that, almost to a man, the NHL’s fighters say their jobs are worth the risk? Understanding this proclivity to accept serious, perhaps fatal, risks could shed some light on another issue that was debated last month in Durban, South Africa under the auspices of the United Nations climate change summit (COP 17).
Climate science has evolved considerably over the last 20 years to the point that we are now virtually certain that humans, through the emissions of greenhouse gases, are causing climate change. We also know that the impacts of climate change are likely to be very serious if nothing is done to reign in global emissions dramatically. Even the International Energy Agency, hardly an environmental advocacy group, recently warned that the “door is closing” to avert catastrophic climate change.
Yet despite years of repeated, urgent warnings from the scientific community, global emissions are up 49 per cent since 1990 and no new deal emerged out of Durban to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
For the most part, the public and the media recognize and acknowledge the risks of continuing to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, yet we have thus far been unwilling to accept or support any substantive economic measures that might impact us personally. As with fighting in hockey, we know climate change might cause serious problems, even death for some, but as the current system is our meal ticket, it’s worth the price.
