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Students offering a lesson in climate change

Katie Ingram

For two Halifax students, educating the public on climate change is a simple as sticking a label on a gas pump.

Breanna Wilkes and Emily Davis, Grade 9 students from Fairview Junior High School, appeared before Halifax’s Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee on April 2. They were there to suggest a way to bring more awareness to the effects carbon dioxide has on the environment.

“We’re doing this because climate change is the biggest threat we’ve ever faced and we need to act on it while we still have a chance,” said Wilkes during the presentation. “We have now passed 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and our yearly emission is quickly increasing; the window to act is small, so we need to act now.”

Their solution is to put the mentioned labels on gas pumps, so that consumers are reminded of the climate change issue they are supporting by using gasoline. One of the proposed labels, which were designed by not-for-profit organization Our Horizon, features the image of a caribou and its fawn along with the words: ‘Use of this fuel product contributes to climate change which may put up to 30 per cent of species at a likely risk of extinction.’

“It takes the normal routine act of pumping gas, challenges it and disrupts it,” said Wilkes. “These labels create dissatisfaction in the marketplace, which stimulates demand for alternatives.”

Davis likened the stickers’ effect to the cancer warning labels on cigarette packages.

“Have you ever wondered if the warning labels on cigarette packages work?,” Davis asked the council. “They do. It’s been proven that the image and text on the labels have changed both attitudes and behaviour toward the use of that product.”

Wilkes and Davis maintained that if the labels were on gas pumps and thus people would be more aware of the issue and might look at alternative resources.

“In order to create change, we need to want change,” said Wilkes.

Along with suggesting the labels, the students outlined three problems that can cause climate change: a lack of feedback since the effects of carbon dioxide emissions aren’t felt until later on, a diffusion of responsibility and an externalities issue.

“The price of gas depends on the costs of everything it took to get it there,” explains Davis about externalities. “However when you burn fossil fuels that contributes to climate change, which leads to property damage, health problems, extreme weather and so on.”

Along with this, Wilkes and Davis mentioned that in January the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) was presented with a resolution on the labels by West Vancouver. It will be voted on by the FCM in June 2016. Halifax’s Environment and Sustainability Standing Committee stated they first had to see where the idea stands with FCM before taking action.

“We will then know what direction we can take,” says committee chair, Coun. Jennifer Watts, noting that Coun. Bill Karsten would look into it as he is Halifax’s FCM representative. “We will put on our agenda for an update for the next meeting.”

Even though a decision on the idea may take same time, Wilkes and Davis were commended by the committee, as the labels are seen as a worthwhile project.

“I see, maybe, a discussion very soon amongst committee members,” said Coun. Barry Dalrymple. “Maybe it’s time … to get involved with this, discuss it and come up with a motion.”

It was also noted by the committee that if the idea moves forward they would have to see if it fell under the municipality’s jurisdiction.

 

  • far_side

    It’s sad to see young people being conned by the masterminds of the greatest hoax the world has ever encountered. It they did a little research they would discover that carbon dioxide is an essential atmospheric trace gas withthout which all plant life would perish once the concentration drops below 150 ppm. Even at 400 ppm plants are being starved of this biologically important gas. That is why greenhouse operators add more to bring their building level up to 1000 to 1500 ppm because they know it improves growth and reduces water uptake.

    The air we exhale has a CO2 concentration of 40,000 ppm, but even at that the amount produced from man-made sources represent only about 3 percent of total global emissions. The other 97 percent comes from natural sources such as the oceans and bacteria. The question these students fail to ask is why the average global temperature, as measured by satellites since 1979, is the same as it was 18 years ago despite a rise in CO2 level of about 10 percent?

    If the natural emissions failed to cause temperatures to rise in nearly two decades and contrary to the predictions of all the IPCC climate models, then how can we expect our measly 3 percent to create the runaway warming the panel has been predicting for over 25 years?

    The answer is due to the shoddy science and overreliance on dubious climate models underlying the AGW theory that insist temperatures must rise with the CO2 level. That it hasn’t suggests the theory is nonsense and should have been scrapped at least 10 years ago.

    http://www.mrctv.org/blog/global-warming-fight-may-finally-be-ending-new-study

    http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/scientists-debunk-climate-models.html

    What these students forget is that the climate has cycled naturally between warm and cool episodes for thousands of years and that civilizations have advanced during the former and retreated during the latter. There is now growing evidence that the global climate has entered a new cooling cycle that will bring temperatures back to values last seen in the mid 1970s based on the relationship between climate cycles and the combined effect of solar and ocean cycles.

    http://agwunveiled.blogspot.ca/

    The anti CO2 propaganda coming from the U.N., misguided academics, science-challenged politicians and media interests has wasted billions of tax dollars on idiotic programs to reduce CO2 emissions that will have no observable effect on the climate but will drain our pocketbooks to fund such programs and for more costly and intermittent “green” energy development. All this to adapt to the wrong climate shift when we should be preparing for the much colder weather for the next 30 or more years according to some solar scientists.

    These students will discover in the years ahead that they were deliberately scammed by the AGW hucksters and taken advantage by scientists and governments anxious to cash in on the anti CO2 gravy train. It will be a bitter lesson learned.

  • Rob Shirkey

    Great work, Emily and Breanna! I’m so inspired and impressed by your actions. Keep up the amazing work in Halifax!