Post by jorinaparvin147 on Feb 24, 2024 23:43:02 GMT -7
In one American city, the routine action of putting gas in the car could be accompanied by warnings about climate change. By the end of January, Cambridge, Massachusetts, could become the first city in the country to pass an ordinance requiring all gas station fuel pumps to carry a label informing consumers of the climate and health risks they pose. involves the burning of diesel, ethanol and gasoline. Gas bomb. Should gasoline have climate change warning labels? Jan Devereux, the former deputy mayor who led the bill until his retirement from the City of Cambridge, commented: I think there is a certain pride in Cambridge in trying to be a leader, in modeling policies that may seem somewhat radical and then being generally adopted. Devereux's victory at Cambridge was at least seven years in the making. He followed an unsuccessful effort to obtain climate labels on gas pumps in Berkeley, California; a limited extent in North Vancouver, British Columbia; and a law that will soon be implemented in Sweden. Advocates hope that by highlighting the dangers of these fuels the moment people buy them, they will gradually change social norms and create demand for more ambitious and far-reaching government action to address climate change. However, putting stickers on bombs has proven to be backbreaking work, showing how challenging it still is to take simple climate action. The idea of the fuel label dates back a decade. It all started in a traffic jam.
It was 2010, and Robert Shirkey, a Canadian lawyer, was stuck on an eight-lane highway in Toronto listening to a radio program about the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Looking at the cars around him, he suddenly realized that they had all contributed to that disaster in some way with their unquestionable fuel consumption, and Job Function Email List they didn't even realize it. Traffic. Should gasoline have climate change warning labels? Three years later, Shirkey officially launched a nonprofit called Our Horizon, in an ode to the disaster, to lead others toward the same kind of awakening. He called for warning labels on gas pumps to make the impact of filling their tanks more tangible for consumers. She envisioned color photos of sick children, similar to the images that were mandated for cigarette packages in the United States. And damaged coral reefs accompanied by clear text about the climate and health effects related to fuel purchases. Reminding people about the impact a product has on the environment the moment they purchase it changes their experience with that product.
Robert Shirkey. And if consumers start thinking differently, he hopes it will push them to question society's dependence on these fuels more broadly and advocate for new measures to confront the climate crisis. "It is an attempt to change behavior," he explained, also adding that: It focuses more on creating a social environment that favors reform and expedites government solutions. Shirkey began lobbying for gas pump labels in his hometown of Toronto. But the timing was unfortunate: A political and media storm surrounding the late Mayor Rob Ford's drug scandal meant major changes on the city council, effectively preventing Shirkey's idea from getting off the ground there. So he took his program on the road, giving talks at universities and municipalities across Canada to teach people about the idea and convince them to talk to their local government officials about it. My message to politicians is to have the courage to do this and do it well. Robert Shirkey, While Shirkey generated a decent amount of interest, he said municipalities were hesitant to be the first to implement a measure like this, especially since they felt the fossil fuel industry would surely sue to stop their efforts. In January 2015, West Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a resolution essentially approving the idea without requiring the labels.