COMMUNITY
MEANWHILE, IN NEPAL
The Other Humanitarian Crisis
T
wo major events in the past month have been the subject of tremendous media coverage. They have allowed new Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to immediately position his government as a more engaged global citizen than that of his predecessor. They
affect people everywhere. They are the Syrian refugee crisis, and the UN climate change
conference in Paris (COP21).
After the failure of climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, and with climate change becoming more evident all the time, environmentalists pulled out all stops to compel heads of government at COP21 to commit to getting off fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy.
The end result was a commitment to keep the planet from warming more than 2º C.
In theory, this sounds good. But as Parvati Magazine editor-in-chief Parvati recently pointed
out on her blog, “From the perspective of the heated and agitated planet, a 2ºC agreement does not resolve its suffering, but still accepts a grave increase with consequences for
human life. To me,