Juno News - December 18, 2020


Using the pandemic to push a green agenda


Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

175.84496

Word count

496

Sentence count

29


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In April, the Green Party of Canada sent out a press release that really floored me when I saw it. They were looking at the lockdowns, which were quite new at the time, and they were saying, hey, this actually creates a template for a way to go about things to combat climate change, to never go back to the old ways of living and doing things. Their words, template, old ways, their words... their words, not mine.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Back in April, the Federal Green Party of Canada sent out quite a press release that really floored
00:00:11.100 me when I saw it. They were looking at the lockdowns, which were quite new at the time,
00:00:15.120 middle of April, and they were saying, hey, this actually creates a template for a way to go about
00:00:20.660 things to combat climate change, to never go back to the old ways of living and doing things.
00:00:25.860 Their words, template, old ways, their words, not mine. I thought, wow, this is really something.
00:00:31.680 And I tried to ring the alarm bell about it. I posted it on social media. I was chatting about
00:00:35.300 it here and there. People didn't seem too bothered by it, didn't generate a lot of mainstream attention.
00:00:39.580 And in all fairness, the Green Party is not a mainstream party. They have, what, two members
00:00:43.560 of parliament, two or three, something like that. They're the fifth party, fifth place party. Not all
00:00:48.460 that relevant, not particularly in control of things. So, okay, who cares what they're saying?
00:00:53.520 But hold on a second. We're hearing more and more organizations say things just like that
00:00:58.680 closer and closer to the top. Like the United Nations and their environmental department,
00:01:05.020 which, as we know, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Catherine McKenna, Environment Minister Jonathan
00:01:09.380 Wilkinson, Stephen Guilbault, another cabinet minister, they really like what the UN is saying
00:01:14.120 and doing. And they really pledged to fulfilling a lot of the UN's climate goals, particularly,
00:01:18.820 of course, the Paris Climate Agreement. Well, take a listen to something from a report that
00:01:24.280 the UN released just the other day. And talking about the pandemic, they say it's provided insight
00:01:30.740 into how rapid lifestyle changes can be brought about by governments who must create conditions
00:01:36.200 that make lifestyle changes possible. The lockdown period in many countries may be long enough to
00:01:42.020 establish new lasting routines if supported by longer term measures and planning the recovery.
00:01:48.140 Governments have an opportunity to catalyze low carbon lifestyle changes by disrupting entrenched
00:01:54.920 practices. Wow, that's something. So these programs, the recovery, they're not just saying,
00:02:01.420 okay, we'll support individuals and businesses, give them a check every month and so forth. They're saying,
00:02:05.540 no, no, no more to entrenched practices. And again, this is not from some fringe outfit
00:02:12.200 off to the side. This is from the UN's environmental department, the very same organization that has
00:02:18.600 created things that Canada has gone on to sign on to. This is a problem. I put a request into
00:02:24.420 Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson's office, haven't heard back from him yet on, what do you feel
00:02:29.000 about all this? Are you guys soon going to be signing up to this? Extremely worrisome,
00:02:33.780 extremely problematic, if they are. And I think opposition politicians, Canadians, people all across
00:02:40.180 the country should really be saying to the government, this is a worrisome thing. Are you
00:02:45.260 planning on implementing this? Because I really hope you don't.