Month 12, Day 16: Hearin’ It Through The Grapevine…

An editorial in the Guelph Mercury gives a qualified approval to Cancun’s results, while reminding us that the bulk of the work is ours to carry out.

Amelia Meister correctly notes that the Cancun agreements, while a tentative step in the right direction, leave much of the heavy lifting unaccounted for. This means that the world’s people will have to lead; our leaders are almost without exception too busy following the scents of money and power to be relied upon for responsibility on behalf of the planet. Meister’s suggestions for individual action are well-formulated, but she omits the most important one of all for those who are concerned about our global future: all of us must talk to other people. Because many of the world’s media networks have deep financial interests in spreading disinformation, staying genuinely and reliably informed about climate change is extremely tricky. It is up to us to move the conversation about climate change out of corporate control, and to help one another understand this complex and challenging subject. In the face of the gravest threat humanity has ever confronted, ignorance attains profound moral dimensions, along with human and environmental costs we cannot afford.

Warren Senders