The guest speaker at April 22's Earth Day Celebration hosted by Blue Bayfield says a very important part of dealing with climate change is having conversations about it.
Alexandra Ho is a Master of Climate Change graduate from the University of Waterloo and was a Canadian delegate to the COP 27 in Egypt. Ho says discussion on climate change brings it to our minds and makes the issues a little more immediate.
“Everyone comes to the conversation with a different experience and area of concern and so when we all start bringing that together it really brings the conversation into focus and it gives us areas to start addressing and makes that more concrete," shared Ho.
One of the things that became very clear in Ho's research was that we discount things that are in the future.
“We discount things that are in the future more than we do in the present and so when we situate in the future we just, inherently feel a little less concerned and less motivated to act, but when we are acknowledging the affects in the present we're more motivated to act," added Ho.
Ho points out that for anyone who has recently experienced drought, or a flood, or a forest fire, climate change is very real and very present now. But she adds, sometimes after the mess has been cleaned up, it becomes more distant. So she says it's important to keep having those conversations.
However, as Ho adds, it is also critical that we continue to look at how we can reduce out emissions and de-carbonize to work towards the 1.5 degree target as set out by the Paris Agreement. And she says she is encouraged by things like the recent Earth Day Celebration that people are beginning to realize that as far as climate change is concerned, the future is here.