Be is resolved…
Climate Change is Mankind’s defining crisis, and demands commensurate international response.
I attended an invigorating climate change debate at the new Telus Centre for Performing Arts at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto last week. The new centre is a mix of classic arts and new age chic decor.
http://www.rcmusic.ca
This is the second debate (and fourth in the series) I have attended, the last being a discussion on success of Foreign Aid. I highly recommend the semi-annual event to anyone in Toronto. Due to overwhelming demand (the tickets sell out quite quickly), the debates are now streamed live on the munk debates site and piped into local universities.
Background on the speakers:
Pro
“We need to look at all of Canada’s priorities, but we must address the climate crisis…if we fail to address it, nothing else we do makes any difference.”
-Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada
“The real costs of climate change are not measured in dollars and pounds, the real costs are measured in lives and in ecosystem…immeasurable.”
-George Monbiot, Best selling author, Hear: How to stop the planet burning, United Nations Global Award Winner, columnist Guardian, UK.
Con
“…we are knowingly squandering colossal sums of money (on climate change) while fractional sums can save millions of lives right now.”
-Bjorn Lomborg, Director of Copenhagen Consensus Center, author of The Skeptical Environment, names one of 75 most influential people of the 21st century (Esquire Magazine)
“We have entered a new age of unreasoning which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is disquieting. It is a from this, above all, that we need to save the planet.”
-Lord Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher, past President of British Institute of Energy Economics, author on Global warming
Personally, I have done quite a bit of research on climate change, for university presentations and out of general interest. That’s why I was happy to see the Debate was of the highest quality, mixing old school politicians, new age authors and thinkers with passion and personal investment in the position. I fully support climate change as the defining crisis of our generation, however I do understand the position of the con team as climate change, being not the, but one of the “more” important issues today. From their perspective, they seem to instruct that global economic instability, war and famine, are the immediate crisies that demand political and financial attention.
What do you think?
The full recording of the event can be seen at the event site below.