Weather is NOT climate.
Climate is NOT weather.
Kindly
get
your
sh*t
together.
— Nostradamus
Well, not THAT Nostradamus, but Nostradamus Perez, the dude that sold chapati down the block from where I used to yoga. Regardless, it’s pretty clear, you don’t have to be a quantum physicist to figure this one out. That’s why I was very surprised and a bit heartbroken when a veteran journalist I look up to told all of us cyborgs in social media that why bother with climate change when the weather changes everyday.
Oh.
(me blinking back tears, biting my tongue)
Climate is NOT weather. This is the very first thing Yeb Saño will ever tell you about Climate Change.
Yeb Saño is the country’s top climate activist and Commissioner of the Philippine Climate Change Commission.
I met up with Saño last January for a follow-up interview, a couple of months after he went on a hunger strike at the Climate Change Conference in Warsaw, Poland (see previous post The Earth is One But The World is Not: The Politics of Climate Change). Saño lost so much weight and decided to maintain his slimmer, healthier frame.
He needed to get ready for battle —again.
There’s the kick-off at Bonn.
See https://unfccc.int/
Then Lima, Peru at the end of the year. I mulled attending the Lima talks. But Saño advised, save your energy and excitement for Paris.
2015.
The 2015 Paris Climate Conference is, after all, the main event of this very hopeful generation.
Here, a global climate agreement will be reached, legally binding legally binding legally binding (rinse, repeat) legally binding so industrialized nations must cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Seriously.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), this NEW global climate agreement will replace the Kyoto Protocol as the world’s most important treaty on climate change.
The goals:
Low-carbon economy
Renewable energy revolution
wind, waves, water, sun
Climate-resilient communities
Easy enough?
Nacho fast! Ehehehe…Corn-y.
Sorry ‘bout that.
The other day, I interviewed an environmental toxins expert from Australia. He used to advise the previous government on sustainable waste management and other environmental policies. However, the new administration, he said, is pro-coal, unfortunately. Therefore, ten steps backwards for the Climate Movement down under. Oh, well.
Hello Australia. Hello USA. Hello China. (cue: Lucky Kitty wave)
So… onto Paris, 2015.
I may or may not go as a journalist. But I’m sure I’ll be there as a human being. Someone who has a lot of explaining to do to her future children and the generations to come.
I may or may not also be billeted at Hotel Le Notre Dame. Tsk .Tsk. Old habits, old habits…
P.S.
William Moomaw is one of the extraordinary trailblazers of the Climate Change Fight that began in the late 80s.
I looked up my old notes from a Moomaw lecture I attended.
Earth’s climate = 40 year average of weather patterns
Happy to know. ;P
Cheers!