Winds of Change?

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed a dramatic change in the past two with respects to climate change. Some of the things that have changed include a lot more media coverage, more serious overatures to combatting climate change by politicians, and an even stronger and more unified voice in climate change by scientists.

The media coverage that climate change gets right now is inevitable. Right now the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Paris, and is being attended by hundreds of scientists and representatives from 113 countries. Just last November there was the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi. Stuck in the middle of this and straddling each side are the headline grabbing weather events such as record draughts, windstorms, glaciers disappearing, and hell freezing over, etc.

In Canada, climate change is taking center (or is it centre?) stage on the federal political scene. The environment used to be a fringe political topic in that it was recognized and discussed, but the mainstream politicians only needed to pay lip service to it. In 2007 this has completely changed. From what I understand, the environment is the number one issue for the majority of Canadians. All of the leaders are scrambling to stake their claim to being the true responsible champion for the environment.

The scientific community has now come to unified conclusion and it’s pretty clear that climate change deniers were wrong. Of course that doesn’t mean that there aren’t groups of people trying to play down this issue. In fact, here in Vancouver we are extremely lucky (tongue firmly in cheek) to be the home of the Fraser Institute, who are said to be funded by Exxon to produce a report that contradicts the IPCC report.

That’s about all I have to say on the matter right now. I think I’m going to add a new category of links for climate change information. The David Suzuki Foundation is probably a good place to start…