To the Editor,
“It is my hope that this report shocks us into action. Even for those of us already committed to fighting climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency.”
These are the words which Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank uses to introduce the bank’s recently released report Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4-degree Celsius Warmer World Must Be Avoided.
Meanwhile, the World Bank continues to provide massive funding for fossil fuel projects around the world. What are we to make of this dichotomy?
Is this a case of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or an attempt to “greenwash” the bank’s continuing pursuit of profits at any cost? Whatever the reasons behind this appalling contradiction, hopefully it will cause us to look more closely at our own lives and to see that in spite of our good intentions we continue our addiction to oil, whether in our investments, or in our daily use of energy for work and pleasure.
It is going to be hard for us break our addiction to oil. We will need to change not only our personal use of energy, but our government policies of subsidizing fossil fuels and ignoring sustainable energy development.
It is hard to accept that we are all part of the problem. But we all need to be part of the solution.
A friend of mine recently wrote in a New Year’s reflection that “possibilities are born of vision and made real through focused intention”.
John Mayba,
Port Alberni