I haven’t done a comprehensive scan but there don’t seem to be many general news sources that do a great and consistent job of covering climate change. But there are two that I do know of – the first being the The Guardian UK who does an excellent job but there’s also an online site right here in Vancouver called The Tyee that does a great job of covering the issue and trying to educate people about what it is and its impacts. As someone who is currently known to put people in comas talking about saving elephants and the planet, you can only imagine my delight at this story. It’s probably en par with finding out that the British are sending the army in to help fight against poaching in Kenya.
So without further ado, check out this juicy story posted here offered by the mighty Tyee. A big thanks to them and the Guardian for taking on the challenge for talking about and trying to educate others on what is the most important issue facing us today. If there are others out there and I’m sure there are, let me know who they are.
The Four Tribes of Climate Change
More than ever, influential subcultures shape our response to global warming. Which do you belong to?
By Geoff Dembicki, Today, TheTyee.ca
People have always disagreed about climate change. But for two fleeting years starting in 2006, it really seemed like most North Americans had accepted the climate narrative pushed into the mainstream by Al Gore and Lord Nicholas Stern: that in global warming humankind faced its greatest ever challenge, but solving it would make us all richer and stronger.
That worldview was so compelling, you may recall, that itwon Gore the Nobel Peace Prize and elevated environmental worries to the top of North America’s political agenda. It also caused Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to assert in 2007 that global warming is “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.” Well, we all know what happened next.
Wall Street collapsed. So did climate talks in Copenhagen. Americans elected a Congress more polarized than any other in U.S. history. Cap-and-trade legislation fell to pieces. Activists declared war on Canada’s oil sands. Harper’s government declared war on activists. Media mostly ignored a global boom in climate-saving technology. And humankind’s carbon emissions continued their inexorable rise.
It now seems improbable that a single, compelling climate narrative could recreate the environmental zeitgeist of 2006 and 2007. Instead, four influential subcultures have risen in the intervening years, each with its own story to tell about the limits and opportunities of a warming planet. Taken together, they represent the fears and hopes of a generation living through tumultuous global change.
Read the rest right here.
Condofire 