{"id":389047,"date":"2022-01-03T18:35:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/lets-make-climate-change-boring-in-2022\/"},"modified":"2022-01-03T18:35:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T15:35:23","slug":"lets-make-climate-change-boring-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/lets-make-climate-change-boring-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"#Let\u2019s make climate change boring in 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Let\u2019s make climate change boring in 2022<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Opinion: Instead of dwelling on the drama and dread consider this: Canada has a plan and we\u2019re starting to bend the greenhouse gas emissions curve downwards\n <\/div>\n
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Rick Smith is the President of the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices <\/em><\/p>\n

There are some dramas that people actually like.<\/p>\n

The season finale of the HBO hit \u201cSuccession\u201d, for example, was extremely entertaining. I and millions of other viewers loved it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing about drama: a little can be a lot of fun. But too much\u2014especially the stuff we feel like we can\u2019t control\u2014starts to take a mental toll.<\/p>\n

It often felt, over the past year, that we were collectively being held hostage to real-life dramas that rivalled those of our favourite TV show.<\/p>\n

The prime culprits\u2014of course\u2014are the tough choices we\u2019ve had to make through the COVID pandemic. It\u2019s the drama that just won\u2019t stop. It\u2019s overwhelming. It\u2019s unrelenting. It\u2019s so unprecedented we\u2019ve had to create a whole new vernacular<\/a> to describe the experience.<\/p>\n

Another ongoing drama is the existential threat of climate change. Whenever I tell people that I work on climate change for a living the first question out of their mouths is some version of \u201cAre we screwed?\u201d It never fails: at a dinner party, at the barbershop, you name it.<\/p>\n

This widespread angst is backed up by public opinion research. Nearly 60 per cent of global youth say they are very worried about climate change and almost half say those concerns about climate affect their daily lives. Here in Canada, this \u201ceco-anxiety\u201d is exacerbated<\/a> by the extreme wildfires and flooding we saw this year and the expectation that the devastating effects of climate change will only get worse.<\/p>\n

Does it need to be this way? Do we have to suffer from the anxiety and uncertainty of a frightening, dystopic future? The short answer is no.<\/p>\n

Of course, we\u2019re not going to sort out all of the world\u2019s current craziness, but here\u2019s one thing we could do in 2022 to ease Canadians\u2019 climate change worries: make climate change boring. Boredom means predictability. It means calm. And I think we could all use a bit of that right now.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a quote attributed to Winston Churchill that goes like this: \u201cLet our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.\u201d That\u2019s what we have the potential to do in the coming year in this country.<\/p>\n

Canada now has a climate change law at the federal level, the \u201cNet Zero Emissions Accountability Act,\u201d which requires\u2014by the end of March\u2014the country\u2019s first 2030 emissions reduction plan. For the new Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, this plan<\/a> needs to include mandates for electric and zero emission vehicles, cutting down on methane pollution, capp<\/a>ing and cutting emissions from the oil and gas industry and transitioning to a net zero electricity grid.<\/p>\n

If the government does all of this, we\u2019ll be well on the way to taking a significant bite out of carbon emissions in this country for the first time.<\/p>\n

Will this instantly lift the worry-burden that people are feeling with respect to climate? Of course not. But knowing that we have a plan, that we\u2019re starting to bend the greenhouse gas emissions curve downwards, will be a significant psychological milestone in the history of the Canadian carbon conversation.<\/p>\n

Other countries that have already made more progress on carbon reduction show us the way forward. The U.K., for instance, has halved carbon emissions since 1990. It has settled into an annual cycle of executing the national carbon reduction plan, assessing progress against the plan, updating the plan, then repeating. It\u2019s boring. It\u2019s predictable. It\u2019s working.<\/p>\n

When public policies are working well, they usually cease being hot topics of discussion. My hope for 2022 is that we need to talk about climate change less, because we\u2019re doing more.<\/p>\n

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