What's The Plan

Forgive me. I intend to continue my campaign to promote fear about climate change. There is good reason to be afraid, and there is one intelligent response: do something to reduce the risk. If instead we do something to reduce the fear, the danger remains. 

Before now, remoteness of tragedy in place and time has allowed some fortunate few to ignore the danger of climate change. They are OK with wildfires in Australia or a flood in Pakistan or sea level rise threatening the Maldives because that isn't happening here and now. 

But as GHG emissions accumulate, we are less safe here and now. When my house is in flames, when my town is flooded, when I can't stay cool in the summer heat, when our coasts erode, the remoteness of risk is shown to be delusional. We will discover that we should have been afraid and should have  done something when we had the chance. 

That visceral place where we experience fear is not where we do math. Perhaps we don't do math; we leave it to the experts. Suppose they estimate average GHG emissions per capita and put a price on it. Let's see, 40 million Canadians sharing annual emissions of 670 million tonnes with a social cost of $261 per tonne, that comes to $4372 per person per year. Whew! That's expensive, but maybe we can live with it. In fact, the government uses such calculations to inform policy so we can collectively go on living with it. Do we leave it up to the government concerned as it is with averages?

Here's the thing about math and money.
There are no average people.
When a child dies in a flood,
the mean is meaningless,
the cost is everything.

Fear the fearless,
those racing to oblivion.

If we value being and becoming
we learn from our fear and plan to live.

Now what's the plan?

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Update from Enbridge Gas: last year at our house we used 33 cubic metres of gas in July. This year it was 23 cubic metres. The target is zero. Heading the right direction slowly. Still afraid. Still making plans. This note is part of my plan. Join me. Let's pay attention to our fear. 

Since you have stuck with me this long, maybe you will let me ask a probing question.  What's your plan? Baby steps are excellent. Let's talk.