I'll Be Here All Week

The climate change consultation marathon has been run. 

The names of the places I've been build a short song: 

Toronto twice
And Thunder Bay was nice
More snow than Sudbury
But lots less ice.

In Ottawa  
There're some folks who say "pshaw"
Kingston too had a few
Who found a flaw.

Sunny in Guelph
I felt more like myself
Jam-packed K-W
Takes the top shelf.

Said one of the many game and able staff helping with the consultation, "you must feel like a stand up act doing a show on the road."

That's exactly how I felt. 

Now that I have retired from doing climate change stand up, I will share one trick of the trade.

In several of the meetings, people opposed to government action on climate change sought to overwhelm the discussion. They would pop up early in the question session and set a hostile and argumentative tone.

We were forewarned that there would be a large batch in Guelph. I'd also been told by the regional office that there would likely be organized groups of advocates for other issues. I wasn't looking forward to any of this because I was still a bit punchy from Ottawa and Kingston.  

An idea occurred to me.

After 150 people filed into the Guelph Arboretum, I stood at the mike and introduced myself. 

Then I said, "now that you know who I am, I'd like to find out a little bit about who is in the room with me. Are there any students in the room?"

Several young people put up their hands.

"Are there any people associated with Wellington Water Watchers?"

Ten people put up their hands.

"Anyone from the Citizen's Climate Lobby?"

About a dozen raised their hands.

"Is there anyone in the room," I said, looking straight in the eye of a man I recognized from Ottawa sitting four rows from the front, "who is skeptical about the science of climate change or skeptical of the idea that people may be causing climate change?"

No hands. And no one disrupted the conversation with hostile opinions about flawed climate science. The Ottawa guy four rows from the front stayed in his seat.

In the capacity crowd at Kitchener-Waterloo on Thursday, staff pointed out a man in the audience who had been a real irritant at the session on Monday night in Hamilton.

So, I asked the same questions. When I got to the one about being skeptical about man-made climate change, a few people did put up their hands, including the man from Hamilton. Later on, one or two of them came to the mike, but they were not aggressive. 

So my trick appears to have helped in moderating the crowds. 

But the crowds were also pretty good at controlling themselves.

I did not witness this exchange in Hamilton, but have already heard about it several times.

A woman in her late seventies, maybe even her eighties, was at the mike and speaking about her ideas to fight climate change. A man behind her heckled her and called her names. She stopped and turned to look at him. She said, "You're a very rude person." He shut up. She went on. "Are you disrespecting me because I'm a woman?" He stayed shut up. "Or is it because I'm younger than you?"

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen