Climate emergencies are a bit like buses. You wait an age for one and then three come along at once. Parliaments in the UK and Ireland passed motions declaring a climate emergency in May. Last Monday, Canada followed suit.
It isn’t just parliament sounding the alarm. “This is a climate emergency,” said U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa for the first time last Tuesday. Hours earlier, James Bevan of England’s Environment Agency and Vince Cable, the leader of the U.K.’s Liberal Democrats, also used the phrase.
They join a cast of high-profile public figures already on the bus, from UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres. But how did the language of climate change campaigners jump to the lips of the establishment, and should we welcome its seemingly unstoppable adoption?
Does this language make a difference? A day after Canada’s climate emergency motion, it approved a £4.4 billion oil pipeline. Bristol City Council in the UK also declared a climate emergency, yet the city’s mayor subsequently backed expansion of the local airport. Nothing changed on UK streets after parliament declared a climate emergency, notes former Labour Party leader Ed MIliband. “This silent response to an alarm that we ourselves have sounded symbolizes the challenge we face,” he wrote. _______?_______
Mike Hulme at the University of Cambridge argues against the phrase because it implies “time-limited radical(激进的)” action could end the emergency, when climate change is actually a “new condition of human existence.” Some, HUlme included, also fear the language may cause counterproductive responses.
Bur Roz Pidcock of communication organization Climate Outreach says a climate emergency “suggests a response that is very radical in scale and ambition, but not incautious or knee-jerk(本能的),” and certainly not a license for extreme measure like geoengineering the climate.
Despite the risk of phrase being devalued, Rebecca Willis at Lancaster University in the U.K. tells me it is still useful ---and that’s because it is true. As Spratt says, “You cannot solve a problem unless you name it for exactly what it is.” Getting politicians to adopt the language will also be crucial to holding them to tough policy decisions later, says Doug Parr of Greenpeace.
The phrase’s widespread adoption isn’t a problem. The lack of action equivalent to such language is. And that action is going to include a lot of silently gliding electric buses.
【小题1】Which of the following sentences may best end Paragraph 4?| A．We should strive to stimulate people’s initiative. |
| B．The use of “climate emergency” highlights the challenge. |
| C．Such a mismatch risks making the term meaningless. |
| D．There are many people against the use of the phrase. |
| A．climate change call for deliberate consideration before action is taken |
| B．immediate action should be taken to put climate emergency to an end |
| C．the phrase “climate emergency” may lead to the opposite consequences |
| D．people all over the world have been accustomed to climate change |
| A．Extreme measures will be taken to address the issue of climate change |
| B．The use of the phrase may contribute to substantial policymaking. |
| C．The phrase will make no sense unless practical solutions are found. |
| D．Less attention is paid to the phrase though it reflects a true story. |
| A．Negative | B．Optimistic |
| C．Indifferent | D．Objective |
