The Leaders and the laggards in addressing our climate change crisis

​On Friday, May 10th, our chapter joined the 200-300 people who marched to the Confederation Building  to protest government inaction on climate change.  The demonstration was organized by local high school students in support of the growing global movement, Fridays for Future. As you can see from the picture that John took,  it was a spirited demonstration.

It was great to see such commitment on the part of our young people.  We believe they are absolutely right in their insistence  that the time to act is now.  And we are glad to see that at least some world leaders are beginning to listen. 

                             There is now a “moral, ethical and economic imperative” to take
                         more action to mitigate the existential threat posed by climate change."

So said by top executives from across the United Nations system on Thursday of last week.. It was a follow-up to the huge United Nations report just published detailing the extent of the man-made environmental crisis we are now facing. 

We couldn't help but note that the four key measures UN Secretary-General António Guterres said  governments should prioritize focused on reducing fossil fuel   They were

1. Halting the subsidies to fossil fuel industries
2,  Taxing  pollution or carbon emissions more and people's salaries less.
3.  Stopping the construction of new coal plants
4. Shifting the focus to a green economy, not a grey economy

Unfortunately, it's a message that apparently our two major parties don't want to hear.  While the NDP and NL Alliance spoke at the demonstration both the Liberal and Conservative Parties were noticeable by their absence.   That was disappointing.