Looking for a New Climate Change Metaphor: Canaries Exhausted

While on a book tour recently, Bill McKibben made an interesting point in an appearance in Santa Barbara. McKibben–a former New Yorker writer who wrote his first book on climate change back in l989–in an aside told the crowd that to expect the Sierra Club and traditional conservationists to take on global warming with "the grammar of wildness" that John Muir drew from his life in the Yosemite Valley back in the 1860’s was impractical and unfair.

He suggested that "we’re all looking for the next metaphor" for global warming. 

Yesterday Southwestern reporter John Fleck posted a good example of why: a list of stories published in recent months employing the "canary in a coal mine" metaphor. Many of these stories were terrific, including the very first one, from Corie Brown at the LATimes, which also had a spectacular map of the changes in temperatures projected along the West Coast in years to come, courtesy of Southern Oregon University (see below).

But it’s clear: the canary metaphor is exhausted, perhaps dead. We need a new one. Suggestions, anyone?

Global_warming_and_western_wine_reg

Published by Kit Stolz

I'm a freelance reporter and writer based in Ventura County.

One thought on “Looking for a New Climate Change Metaphor: Canaries Exhausted

  1. I’ll just express my thoughts about this issue. Humans (we) did this. None other but us. Our population just increase enormous and that contributes to global warming itself. Abusing nature, burning things, gasses etc. And some politicians use global warming propaganda for their own publicity. zzz i don’t find any truth. Well, that’s all. Thanks

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