Burrito West Blog

Today I attended a Vancouver event for the International Day of Climate Action.... which had events in hundreds of countries to bring attention to the issue of climate change so that our leaders will take serious action at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

The events were organized as part of 350.org which is a movement to highlight the fact that scientists think that 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is the safe upper limit. We're at 390 right now. (Historically the planet has been around 250 ppm, until 200 years ago.)

That should scare the pants off you.

At the very least, it should get you to write your political leader and tell him/her to take drastic action. (Canadians can click here for an easy way to do it.)

Unfortunately in Canada, our leader doesn't seem to believe in this climate change stuff, and as a result, Canada may well be the country that holds the rest of the planet back from taking serious action. Many European countries are way ahead of us on this stuff (and they did it while improving their economy so the idea that fighting climate change and having a healthy economy are at odds is bunk).

The thing about greenhouse gases in our atmosphere that I think a lot of people don't understand is the idea that we live in a system, a very complicated system with feedback loops. We will, at some point, have fracked up our atmosphere to the point where we can't undo it. We will trigger systemic changes in ecosystems that will irrevocably change the way they function and their ability to support life (including us). And we won't be able to put them back.

Seriously. You need to email someone about this. Do whatever you can to make your voice heard.