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This lawn sign just turned up, just off Cambie Street -- there's an election coming. But I'm confused. What kind of "climate action" do they want? The group giving away these free lawn signs, Kids for Climate Action (K4CA), also has the cash to buy transit advertising. In the run-up to our May 14 Provincial Election here in British Columbia, they say they want to make sure the issue is addressed by the political parties and candidates. K4CA is not running candidates, they are running a PR campaign. They have previously performed a number of flashmob actions going back to, at least, the end of 2010.  I really miss the point of this. To me this is busy work; people wanting to be seen to be doing something, when all we can really do is take it when it comes and learn to deal with the aftermath.

All we can do is brace for it, seriously!

Climate change is a serious issue. I believe it's true, is happening, has been happening, but it's been very unpredictable, and will continue to be, I don't believe it's an issue we can be that proactive about. Carbon taxes or credits may help stimulate clean energy technology, but that won't mitigate the effects of climate change for, well, ever.  I think treaties to reduce greenhouse gasses are pointless, because treaties will fail when they interfere with the economic aspirations of nation-states. And the greenhouse treaties have to seriously interfere with the developing nations if they are to succeed.

I think the developed countries (The West) are trying to tell the developing countries, "do as we say, not as we do, and certainly not as we did!" The developing world simply will not be deterred from following in the carbon footprints of the developed countries, and having their own coal-fired Industrial Revolutions, if they want, except at the point of a gun.

Climate change, a Vancouver angle

Out by an apartment recycling toter bin set, I got to talking with a cheerful resident named Roy. Tall, skinny,  white hair; "82 going on 62," he quipped. A nice old duffer who talks to some of the fellas who come by, he said, meaning binners. We talked about the expected rain, and he mentioned he was born in Vancouver. So I had to ask him about the climate. It's a question I ask every elder born and raised in Vancouver; specifically, "what was the climate like when you were growing up? Is it true that you could skate on ponds in the winter?

"Yes!" said Roy, "and you know Trout Lake? We skated on that. We even skated on the mouth of the Fraser River."

Well, the Fraser River thing is news, but otherwise Roy said what every elder has said, going back to 2007, when a real old-timer named Jerry told me about a long-ago Vancouver that had real winters -- more like the rest of Canada. From what the old folks who grew up here tell me, the cold Vancouver winters lasted into the 1950s, and the change to warmer, wet winters was abrupt. When I moved to Vancouver in 1980, the climate was moderate, with no real extremes, mostly it was raining, had just finished raining, or was about rain. People could skate on a artificial ice circle downtown on the Robsonstrasse.

Thirty-three years later, the climate in Vancouver is different again; almost every two years, we get a cold winter with real dumps of snow. 2008-2009 was one of those. 2009-2010 wasn't. The 2010 Winter Olympics at Whistler, B.C. held in February, saw downtown Vancouver temperatures in the 20s (Celsius), and snow, both artificial and natural, being trucked in to Whistler. Summers, for half a decade, have dried right out in July and August. But, last year, we didn't really have summer, and then we didn't really have a winter, which is more like it was when I moved here.

So the climate has changed, so what?

So the climate has changed, but very unpredictably; nothing you could really plan for. Human activity has been a major contributor, but so what? Placing blame doesn't help. Better to take the approach of a Coroner's Inquest in Canada, which doesn't care to place blame, but to find solutions. And the climate thing is tough, because I believe we (as a species) have to swallow it and accept we don't have the theory or tech to be meaningfully proactive. We can't roll it back, we can just roll with it -- we have to deal with it reactively. Until it hits the fan, I believe we won't know when to duck, or which way to run; we certainly won't have any lawn signs to guide us.