Finding the right canary in the climate coal mine
For some, the recent IPCC report will spur action, but others may still need to find their catalyst
When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth assessment on climate change, I expected it to be a seminal moment. The report’s authors scrutinized and digested more than 14,000 scientific papers and accumulated evidence that human action is causing climate change. They described the situation as “code red” for humanity. Despite the dire warning, they offered hope, saying that if we change our trajectory, we can still avert global warming’s most catastrophic damage.
Following the announcement, I jumped on Twitter and, because I follow a lot of climate scientists, it felt like the world was finally galvanizing to address this issue. I was intoxicated with the thought that we’d reached a tipping point.
The next day proved to be a bit of a hangover. The news cycle quickly focused on Andrew Cuomo’s decision to resign as New York’s governor, and I remembered that like so many other people’s, my forays onto Twitter tend to end up in a bit of an echo chamber (in this case, an environmental one.).
Axios banged this home for me, saying that following the report, only two out of 13 people in a focus group of Trump supporters said they had seen or read the IPCC’s work. While that’s just one focus group, I was alarmed to also read that while this news drew more social media attention than the IPCC’s 2019 interim report, it received less online traffic than the IPCC’s big 2018 study that examined the possibility of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above our pre-industrial levels. In other words, even with record heat, devastating wildfires and torrential floods, we’ve yet to reach the critical mass we need on this existential issue.
Despite my disappointment, this reality reminded me that in order to get to where we need to be on climate change, we cannot forget that there isn’t just one way to deliver important messages. To borrow a metaphor also related to the environment, not everyone brings the same canary into the coal mine.
In the early 1900s, British miners began taking canaries into coal mines to determine if carbon monoxide or some other dangerous odorless gas was present. If the bird stopped tweeting, the miners immediately recognized something was wrong. Although it was a crude, inhumane practice, it lasted until the 1980s. And it reveals a truth about the human condition — many of us need to see the effects of danger if we can’t see the danger itself.
So, if reading about the IPCC report isn’t a stark enough depiction for some, perhaps, we must find the right “canaries.” Environmental organizers are at no loss for options. For the billions of sports fans around the world, the Olympics should be a clear example that the canary isn’t singing the way it once did when it comes to climate.
Climate change was a huge factor at the recently completed Tokyo Games. World Athletics president and former track and field world record-holder Sebastian Coe said that Olympic staff struggled because they were forced “to create field hospitals and … [spend] a year thinking about little else other than how you are going to be coping with the welfare of athletes.”
Indeed, schedules for a wide array of sports, including archery, rowing, sailing, tennis and women’s soccer were all impacted. Even worse, during the Olympics’ first week, approximately 30 workers suffered heat illness. Athletes were not immune either. For example, heat stroke forced Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa to retire from her quarterfinal contest. It was so bad, she left in a wheelchair.
Tokyo isn’t the only place where athletes have been feeling climate change’s wrath. Earlier this summer, Los Angeles Angels pitcher Dylan Bundy vomited mid-game in New York and had to be helped off the field after suffering heat exhaustion. This shouldn’t be surprising because temperatures have increased by 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 in cities with Major League Baseball teams.
Simply put, environmental advocates must remember that not everybody is going to hear about the latest IPCC report, but millions will notice when the heat overwhelms an Olympic athlete or a baseball pitcher is unable to continue in a game. To raise awareness of the gravity of the climate situation, we must seek out ways to meet people where they are. Tragically, we have many options when we’re looking for the right canary for our coal mine.
