We've been talking about it for over 40 years. We make it a central theme of our election campaigns. We even go so far as to walk in the street for the cause. And yet, the planet comes to remind us, this summer, that all of this is window dressing.
In the four corners of the globe, the Earth cries out our past abuses, our willful blindness.
Fires and heat waves
The impact of climate change on wildfires has long been debated.
When Los Angeles is experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years, it's downright dishonest to look the other way.
When the giant sequoias, which not only resisted, but fed on forest fires for 500 or even 2,000 years, finally pass through, the climate-fire connection is obvious.
When flames decimate crops in not one, but three European countries at the same time, when London Bridge has to be wrapped in a firewall to protect it and the runway of a London airport melts under the effect of extreme heat; when it’s the heat wave in May in Quebec, when the sea level and the erosion of the banks threaten the Magdalen Islands, we would dare to hope for a collective awakening to the scourge that hangs over our noses.
But no. Well, barely.
We talk about it, we worry, but nothing more.
Yet the message is clear. Long theoretical, the effect of global warming is having an increasingly direct impact on our lives. Worse, it is only the dawn of a cascade that will only accelerate.
Comfort
However, for years, we have been led to believe that this planetary battle can be won without too many sacrifices.
A little recycling here, composting there. Electric cars. A few wind turbines, and a lot of innovation, the new holy grail.
But in a world fueled by economic growth, constantly increasing consumption, in a world where we always want bigger, more beautiful, we remain propelled in a headlong rush.
You have to replace the tent with a trailer, then you need a big SUV to pull the trailer. Add Facebook, which bombards us with ads for new nonsense, from the origami kayak to the cooling jacket for Fido, and we only accelerate the great destruction of the planet.
Science
The INSPQ confirmed last February that climate change would lead to an increase in illnesses and deaths in Quebec. That the costs would amount to several tens of billions of dollars.
Warnings repeated many times by the greatest experts on the planet.
The irony is that we have clung to this science for more than two years of the pandemic. She was our beacon on the night of the Covid cataclysm. It has even forced unimaginable political consensuses on an international scale, convincing governments to make choices that are as difficult as they are unpopular.
So why, when science sounds the alarm on global warming and its catastrophic consequences with extensive reports, thick as the Bible, do we skimp, temper, relativize?
