I didn't expect to walk away from a climate change symposium feeling hopeful.
Hope is a good word. It inspires action.
The seventh annual Kingston Climate Change Symposium was held in person for the first time since Covid at the Grand Theatre at the end of January. More than 400 people from all different walks of life attended. That in itself gave me hope.
The key note speaker was Bob Macdonald from CBC's Quirks and Quarks and author of one of the latest books on climate change, The Future is Now.
His message was optimistic--we now have the technology and the know-how to solve the climate problem. From micro-nuclear technology, to solar, wind and electricity, we've come leaps and bounds in our ability to develop alternative clean energies and make existing energy sources like oil and gas cleaner.
I came away hopeful that we are listening and learning from Indigenous cultures and peoples about how we are all connected to each other and to Mother Earth, and how we need to deprogram ourselves and our colonial attitude to the land and treat it and its creatures with respect and we must approach this work with open minds and open hearts.
I also came away feeling positive about my personal actions in thinking globally and acting locally, from the geothermal heating/cooling system we installed in our house, to buying my first hybrid vehicle, to all the trees I've sold and planted in my lifetime, to participating in one of the world's largest citizen scientist projects, the Christmas bird count every year. One individual's actions can make a difference.
Macdonald finished his talk drawing a parallel between the world's response to COVID-19 to our response to climate change. In both cases, the global community had to come together to flatten a curve--in the case of the pandemic, of transmission of the disease and hospitalizations, and in the case of climate change, rising temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions.
During COVID, scientists developed vaccines in record time, governments acted swiftly, businesses pivoted and the populace took action to protect the spread.
The science of climate change and the technology to address it has advanced. We now simply need the collective will of governments, business and people to take action.
I'm hopeful we will flatten the curve once again.
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