Climate change will play an important role in Canada’s future
Well the title says it all. You can find a link to the article in the Globe and Mail by clicking this link. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
Only 2 per cent of Canadians who responded to a new opinion poll believe climate change is not occurring.
The findings are in a survey conducted by Insightrix Research, Inc. for IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., a Regina-based centre that studies carbon capture and storage.
“Our survey indicates that Canadians from coast to coast overwhelmingly believe climate change is real and is occurring, at least in part due to human activity,” said centre CEO Carmen Dybwad.
This is good news, and means we are heading in the right direction, because awareness and acceptance are the first steps in our effort to mitigate the effects climate change. That said, I don’t think this is a completely comprehensive assessment of how Canadians feel, I am sure ‘belief’ isn’t that high (although I wish it was).
Now I have an issue with the title of this article and the use of the word ‘believe’, and I think the use of this word muddies the waters so to speak. There is enough empirical and historical data available to move climate change from something one ‘believes in’ to something that is factual. One does not ‘believe’ in gravity, it is simply a force that exists. Just as one does not ‘believe’ the earth orbits the sun, as this is just a factual statement. So lets stop using the notion and terminology that there are “believers’ and ‘non-believers’ when it comes to climate change. Let’s just call things for what they are; there are people who understand the facts and understand climate change is real, and there are people who just don’t quite understand all the facts (or don’t want to for various reasons). Period.