It’s time to to end the silence about climate change

Re: ‘This is our moment’ on climate change — Sept. 7

The B.C. wildfires, hurricane Florence, flooding in southern Ontario — these are all indicators of extreme climate change. We no longer have weather events without humanity’s carbon fingerprint influencing them.

While we recognize that weather isn’t climate, the climate certainly influences the weather. Climate change is the loaded dice in our weather systems that makes rare weather events more common. Our oceans are substantially warmer than they were even 30 years ago and only getting warmer as the heat we release with fossil fuels is absorbed by the oceans. What this means is more intense hurricanes, heat waves, drought, wildfires and the degradation of our oceans.

Yet, when the media reports on these events, rarely do we hear about their links to climate change, despite the rigorous science that clearly ties the two together. Why then, with such a catastrophe unfolding before us and the science being settled, do we not report on climate change in the news?

We can do a great deal to mitigate and adapt to climate change. However, we won’t do anything until we start talking climate change, and we won’t talk about climate change if we are all silent about it. Ending climate silence requires news organizations to step up. We owe it to each other to talk about climate change before the entire planet suffers.

Megan Ruttan

Citizens’ Climate Lobby Waterloo Region Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice Waterloo Region

Kitchener