On Friday 27th September the Taking Root team will be striking, joining over 150 other Vancouver businesses and an estimated 15,000 people taking to the streets to demand immediate, drastic and collective action to tackle the climate crisis. We are compelled to strike in the hope that it makes leaders, governments, businesses and people around the world wake up from a collective stupor and begin to mobilize to tackle climate change at somewhere near the scale that is required. Here’s why.
Accepting the reality
For the last thirty years we have ignored and underestimated the full reality of the impacts from climate change. In the last few weeks scientists have revealed more stark truths about just how far behind we are in our responses:
The climate targets we are setting are nowhere near bold enough: According to leading climate scientific bodies, in a report released last week, countries’ current plans to cut emissions would still lead to devastating climate changes with an increase in global temperatures between 2.9C and 3.4C by 2100. Countries must triple the ambition of their current targets if we are to mitigate the worst affects of climate change.
We aren’t even meeting existing targets: Less than a fifth of the world’s largest companies are likely to meet the targets set out in the Paris Climate agreement by 2050 according to new analysis conducted by investment data provider, Arabesque S Ray.
The devastating affects of climate change are already upon us: From the tragic extreme weather events felt in the Bahamas and Mozambique, the forest fires in the Amazon or the drought affecting millions of farmers in Latin America, across the world we are seeing only the beginning of the humanitarian, ecological and economic breakdowns caused by climate change.
The world as we know it is over
Climate change can sometimes make us feel powerless. It is such an existential threat to our current way of living and experiencing the world that it can feel like there is no appropriate way to respond. Might as well just flick onto another show on Netflix and hope tomorrow never comes. While I could probably watch the Great British Bake off on repeat for ever, one thing is true. Change is coming, whether we like it or not. The only thing we have a choice about is whether we meet that change head on.
And meet it we can! We could so easily create wide sweeping transformative changes to the way our global society interacts with the environment if the individual, political and business will was there.
Rethinking food production: Currently, just 1% of the $700bn a year of subsidies provided to farmers goes towards benefiting the environment, which if redirected with the right policies could drive a shift towards sustainable food production and create new business opportunities of $4.5 trillion a year by 2030.
Transforming the energy system: The fossil fuel industry currently receives upwards of $5 trillion a year in tax payer subsidies but it is estimated that with just $600 billion annual investment 80% of the global energy mix could be provided by renewables and other zero-carbon power sources by 2040.
Protecting and restoring our natural world: 37% of the emissions reductions we need to meet could be achieved through natural solutions including reforestation, peatland restoration and mangrove regeneration.
If not you, who? If not now, when?
We have to grasp these opportunities. Ignoring them, as Greta said, is a true betrayal of one another, our children and the natural world we are a part of. Last Friday over 4 million people came together in the largest climate rally in history to signal the need for change. They demonstrated a desire to move away from an economy driven by shareholder profits and towards one which protects our planet for generations to come.
We must also acknowledge that in many parts of the world the people who will be most affected by climate change are the ones who do not have the luxury of striking. The farmers we work with for example cannot afford to take the day off and yet are facing the destruction of their livelihoods unless we act now.
So on Friday, the Taking Root team will be shutting the office and taking to the streets in Vancouver to march for people and the climate. When the problem seems so big and hard to tackle, striking is one of the ways we can all come together; to demand change to create a better future and give governments and businesses a mandate to adopt the policies and take the concrete steps needed to meaningfully tackle the climate crisis.
We extend the invitation to all our clients, partners and followers in Vancouver and across Canada to join us and the other 15,000 people predicted to be coming together to show that 2019 is where we draw the line. We look forward to striking with you. See you at City Hall at 1pm on Friday!
Find out how you can be a part of the Climate Strike in Vancouver, Montreal and across Canada.
Author: Will Sheldon, Commercial Director, Taking Root
