The grass roots
In the past year or so I have noticed a very interesting phenomenon. It seems the more the our governments dither and obstruct any real action to combat climate change caused by human activity and the more our media confuses the issues and ignores the importance of the climate change, the more groups of people hunger for information and action. It’s fascinating to watch. The people that you would expect to take action, lead the initiatives and give us guidance are the biggest problem.
Every week on the Science Files with AK, I inevitably get questions from callers about what is happening, who to believe, how to mitigate what is happening etc. And I am finding that its not government, the media or large companies and corporations that are leading the way on talking, planning and implementing meaningful changes, its small groups from churches, schools and other ethical organizations that are our new leaders.
Governments have failed miserably when it comes to doing anything other than talking. They have completely underestimated the will of the common person to do the right thing when it comes to climate change. And as the days, months and years role on without anything other than rhetoric, small groups of concerned folks are beginning to recycle, reduce and eschew the lack of planning by business oriented governments whose mandate is to keep the status quo.
And so, by and large have the media failed to keep us in the loop in reporting accurately on climate change. In North America, the mainstream media is so woefully inept at reporting on anything other than lurid sexual escapades of insipid cabinet ministers that they have created an information vacuum or even worse a confusion vortex as the planet and it’s eco-systems cook. Most reporters are so woefully under-educated in the sciences and fall regularly for the climate equivalent of the “Nigerian Internet scam” that they are worse than no information at all.
Big business on the other hand, especially the transportation and oil behemoths are as close to an “evil empire” as anything I have witnessed in this society. Just like IBM, GM and Bayer were complicit in the Holocaust of the Nazis seventy years ago, so to are our current business giants in the climate change Holocaust that we are witnessing.
In the past year however, I have witnessed a remarkable about face in the grassroots ethical groups who are finally understanding the implications of business as usual, hear no evil, see no evil and say no evil, triumvirate of climate monkeys. Starving for real information and analysis they have invited speakers, created forums, asked penetrating questions and begun to demand change to our wayward practices. Again it is the individual who comes to the fore, who will make the sacrifices, while those who are supposed to lead, governments, media and business, who are supposed to represent us and our way of life who are wanting and missing in action.