Climate Change Political Parties

We vote for political parties that promise a few items on our voting list: health, jobs, living wages, farmers’ subsidy, that sort of thing. That has been going on for years.

Therefore, it was a big surprise when the Green Party, which is synonymous with safeguarding the environment took 32.7 percent of the vote in the Toronto Centre by-election, in October 2020.

Annamie Paul is the newly minted leader of the Green Party. Marci Len, took home 42% of the vote on behalf of the Liberal Party, which is hobbling along because it lost its majority status in the last election.

ONE ITEM POLITICAL PARTIES

The Green Party’s win forced me to do some homework. Is it possible to vote for a ONE ITEM political party, just the environment? The by-election took place in a COVID-19 year, but we can’t say for sure that it prompted Annamie Paul’s leap.

Other factors must have come to play. Paul is the first black woman to head a political party in Canada. The Liberals had their own dirty linen in public which might have caused voters to look for fresh air.

Anyway, that should not take away the fact that some Canadians feel so strongly about the environment that they would vote for a ONE ITEM political party. That brings me to information. Does the Green Party and environmental groups give me enough information in simple English, to entice my vote?

What I know is that I’m wearing a mask, which tells me that the air is sick. A virus called COVID-19 is responsible. It has statistics, so many dead, so many sick in quarantine. Something must be done.

The government announced net zero emissions recently. Canada is also part of the l’accord de Paris, known as The Paris Agreement. Do I understand all this? Is this written in simple English or French?

These are pertinent questions because the language used in WHO, boardrooms, corporate lawyers’ chambers, laboratories and parliaments ends up in messages, destined for consumers and voters.

Do we understand it? More often than not, manufacturers talk above us, not to us. Take cellphone and computer industries for example. All the noise about gigabytes and the G phone? Do ordinary people understand it, or is it for computer wizards of the Steve Jobs persuasion?

Climate change. We need answers because we are wearing masks. We did not listen when environmentalists said we shall reap what we sow. Big factories are the bad guys but how can ordinary people also contribute to nature’s healing? Talk to us in simple language.

This is another ‘written podcast’ by Nonqaba waka Msimang.