My writings - and those of others.
Metaphor and Meaning
The CBC had a recent Ideas podcast had a recent rerun of a one entitled The Greenest Metaphor. I’ve taken to listening to programs like these at 10:00 pm to wind down from too much looking at screens. All the programs are thought provoking and could actually work against getting to sleep, but I was able to come back to this one in the daytime.
Unless our religious or cultural background is fundamentalist, the place where we probably first encounter and start to understand how metaphors work is in scripture. The Psalms particularly are full of other names for the divine - fortress, rock, shepherd. The story of the Prodigal Son is rich in metaphor and as theologian Sallie McFague notes, metaphors and parables carry much more than a one-to-one connection between two words and their meanings and creates within us an experience that is much broader and rich. Since climate change - now climate emergency - is such a large subject, we are reduced to try and deal with it in a more comprehensive way that single words or concepts can convey.
The Ideas program suggested several metaphors - a race, a sickness, a puzzle, a war - and one more. I don’t recall all the comments on these, but I’ll reflect on my own response..
When I think of a race, I think of a challenge and a contest. The Tortoise and the Hare is a familiar fable. There is a sense of fun and games in a race - and of course, winning. In the case of this fable fable we run into the difficulty that we are already facing. Devastation is coming quickly, so patience is hardly the right response this time. It’s not a matter of fun and games either, but disasters that are destroying us and if we want to stay as the winners - as we have been up to now - it is at the cost of the earth losing. So this one isn’t working so well.
A puzzle is a possibility until we think that some puzzles are so challenging that we tend to give up - or never start. I never try Sudoku like a clever sister-in-law, who does them daily. if it is not the kind of puzzle I like - such as Wordle - now the new family craze - or those regular word puzzles in the New York Times. It doesn’t matter if I can’t solve those on a daily basis - but dealing with climate change does matter. Giving up or not starting - or even saying that I don’t like that kind of puzzle isn’t going to help. There is a lot of not liking the climate change puzzle going around.
We have learned through Covid that sickness is not as straight-forward as we had hoped. Some deny that a sickness even exists and persecute those who believe it. Caring is a good response - but its problem is that we can care passionately without ever doing anything. Taking an aspirin and calling in the morning if it doesn’t work, might not be bad advice for a minor infection, but we now know this is neither minor or simple. This one isn’t going away in a day or two. Pandemic arguments are mirrored in climate change ones. If we do one thing, we risk another. If we stop using fossil fuels, we harm the economy. So there are shortfalls in this one too.
War is a metaphor that is especially popular in North America - the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War to end all Wars. It suggests aggressive action and it also suggests that we are protecting ourselves against an enemy that is evil and must be conquered. But doesn’t that reverse the roles? Nature isn’t our enemy. Over the past two hundred years of industrial activity, we are.
And that’s the conundrum - and the urgency of the last of the words in the Green Metaphor that the Ideas program suggested. It was love. For thousands of years people had positive metaphors for the natural world. Matthew Fox has a lovely series right now talking about Father Sun and Mother Earth - ways of understanding that countless indigenous communities had, until western culture decided that the Earth was something to be exploited. We haven’t loved it enough. Love involves some of the metaphors I have looked at already. Earth isthe great teacher. Its own journey has encouraged us to the challenge of the race, as we look at our own challenges. Its complexity has inspired us to puzzle over its enormous diversity. Its caring for us by providing light, food and air and so much else invites reciprocity.
Recent floods and fire suggests to some that earth is now wreaking revenge on us. But that points out the fallacy we fell into many times in human history and we are having to learn anew. We are not the centre of the universe - we are a species of it - one of its more recent creations. We were the last one to turn up - after stars, galaxies, planets, insects, fish, plants and animals. Watch a newborn calf or foal and we realize that we are also the most fragile of creations and are dependent on others to survive. We need to return that understanding to the earth itself - by loving it enough to start to take care of it.
A New Start for our City
The City of Toronto where I live has spent the last five years addressing climate change:
In 2017 the City Council unanimously approved a long term climate strategy to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions and improve health - also considering economic and social well being.
Two years later in 2019, the council declared a climate emergency. Emissions were 38% lower that year than they were in 1990.
On December 15, 2021, the Council Approved the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy. It includes the following goals for 2030:
Homes & Buildings
All new homes and buildings will be designed and built to be near zero greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings will be cut in half, from 2008 levels
Energy
50 per cent of community-wide energy comes from renewable or low-carbon sources
25 per cent of commercial and industrial floor area is connected to low carbon thermal energy sources
Transportation
30 per cent of registered vehicles in Toronto are electric
75 per cent of school/work trips under 5km are walked, biked or by transit
Waste
70 per cent residential waste diversion from the City of Toronto’s waste management system
Identify pathways to more sustainable consumption in City of Toronto operations and in Toronto’s economy
City of Toronto Corporate Goals
City of Toronto corporate greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 65 per cent over 2008 base year
All City Agency, Corporation and Division-owned new developments are designed and constructed to applicable Toronto Green
Standard Version 4 standard achieving zero carbon emissions, beginning in 2022
Greenhouse gas emissions from City-owned buildings are reduced by 60 per cent from 2008 levels; by 2040, City-owned buildings reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions
All City-owned facilities have achieved zero waste
Generate and utilize 1.5 Million Gigajoules of energy from biogas
Approximately 107,700 tonnes CO2e per year are reduced through Organics Processing with Renewable Energy and Landfill Gas Utilization
50 per cent of the City-owned fleet is transitioned to zero-emissions vehicles
50 per cent of the TTC bus fleet is zero-emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from food the City of Toronto procures are reduced by 25 per cent
It includes a directive to everyone.
The suggestions in this short video may not apply to everyone directly - renters for example - but even here, tenants associations can play a role. Most of the suggestions are actionable by families and bring participation down to the local level. Cities are where we live and work. They are also the places where we have the most impact on local policies. I commend all local councillors - and especially two who send regular newsletters I have signed up to receive. I’ve met in person with both on occasion. In the amount of noise in the news, it’s good to go back to local sources and see that citizens can have an impact.
Meanings
We used to say “climate change” - a fairly unemotional term that didn’t suggest much beyond differences in weather in different locations. Many of us were even hard pressed to know the difference between weather and climate,- including a certain defeated president - but then the media shifted to “global warming”. What we are hearing more often lately are words like “emergency” and “catastrophe” - and rightly so. We need to feel threatened if we intend to do something about it.
Remember “greenhouse effect”? We don’t hear that one any more. Linguists like Todd Ehresmann at Babbel, which checks word usage, points out that “Global Heating” would get our attention as an accurate description now. Activists have helped increase the intensity of the language. That’s helpful because scientists are often cautious knowing the media will exaggerate their claims to sell products through fear - not to arouse the best in us. It’s good that activists lobby for the proper degree of accuracy - and that media watchers like Babbel ensure that we take responsibility for the changes that are happening.
Gratitude
I’m cheating by one day to try to post twice a week - but the last week was a busy one. As the American Thanksgiving weekend winds down and the news that Black Friday online shopping was lower than in previous years, perhaps we are discovering that being grateful is more satisfying than acquiring more stuff. In fact a recent article written by a physician and published in Fast Company backs that up. Here are ways to be ensure it. Nearly all religions and philosophies tell you the same things:
Be thankful for the beauties of nature and its constancy. The sun rises and sets each day
Compared to other living species we have been blessed with consciousness.
Good conversation enlivens us.
Love and encouragement of friends and family assures us.
Giving thanks in the morning and evening reminds us of how fortunate we are.
Writing thank you notes reinforces our gratitude
A journal allows us to record the good things that happen.
Seeking experiences rather than just buying things gives us pleasure.
Making gratitude a habit helps us through sorrow and challenges - so that we can remember that there are other good things waiting for us.