No More Excuses


Climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne says the latest IPCC report leaves no room for more excuses for policy makers reluctant to act on the climate crisis. She says they've got all they need. Further delay is inexcusable.

Zurich-based scientist Sonia Seneviratne, an expert on extreme weather, spent hundreds of hours volunteering her time as a lead author for a chapter in the UN climate panel's latest assessment of global warming.

But it could be her last time contributing to these reports. She questions their usefulness and has become frustrated that policymakers continue to fail to act on the scientific research.

"There is no point for us to just observe what a disaster is unfolding if nobody is doing anything about it."

IPCC report co-author Baylor Fox-Kemper, professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island, echoed Seneviratne's remarks. One of the reasons scientists prepare the report is to provide decision makers with information that may stimulate mitigation efforts, he said.

"And in that respect I'm with Dr. Seneviratne that the response to our reports has been less than I hoped," Fox-Kemper said in an email to CBC News.

It's pretty clear that our prime minister still has one foot on the dock, the other in the boat.  He can't choose the petro-state or meaningful action on climate change. He's still pretending that a carbon "price" at the gas pump is going to solve our predicament - as if. Trudeau's cowardice might have lasting consequences for the nation and our kids.


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