We want municipalities to pass by-laws requiring gas retailers to place climate change warning labels on their gas pump nozzles, just like those on cigarette packages.
Face The Change – Our Horizon
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Face The Change
Empower youth on our cross-Canada tour to make climate change history!
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Executive Director Rob Shirkey at our Crowd Fund Launch, July 2013
A Simple Idea
Our Horizon was started by a municipal lawyer, Rob Shirkey, with the simple yet unique idea to take a bottom-up approach in addressing climate change: we want municipalities to pass by-laws requiring gas retailers to place climate change warning labels on their gas pump nozzles, just like those on cigarette packages.
It’s a low-cost, common sense idea that already has the
support of many orgs, and is quickly spreading beyond Canada – just yesterday well-known American environmentalist Bill McKibben of 350,org
tweeted out his own support, and we’ve been featured in press as far away as
Germany. We’d really appreciate it if you could share your support too, and we’d be happy to share the love in return:
An Honest Place to Start
Our campaign is just one of the many pieces required in the huge battle for a healthier, more livable world, but it is an important piece because it’s all about honesty. The fact is, while burning fossil fuels has many benefits, we also know it contributes to climate change by changing the basic chemistry of our atmosphere, and it’s time to be honest about that. Our labels challenge our entire society to have the courage to honestly face climate change, and in doing so, move us to a place where we are ready to develop and embrace real solutions.
Better, more efficient vehicles. Better public transit. Better ways of getting from A to B, period. Better methods of generating the power we use on a day-to-day basis. All of this equals
a better future. Our labels provide relevant information to the market to help encourage a market shift in a safer, more sustainable direction. They’re the little idea that has the potential to make a very
big impact, and serve as a catalyst to all kinds of other innovative climate change solutions.
It all starts with honestly looking at where the current direction leads us.
A student warning label made during
We’ve made several inspiring videos exploring the vision, theory and common questions behind our concept. We are genuinely interested in your input on our project, and in building lasting relationships with other hardworking planet-savers.
Supply and Demand
Our concept connects all of us to one of the big issues that keeps us from acting on climate change – our continuing demand for fossil fuels – right at the point of purchase, challenging this unhealthy dependency. If we want to stop many of the negative impacts of the supply-side of extracting fossil fuels – from the tar sands, to pipelines, to coal mines, deep-sea drilling etc. – then we need a two-pronged approach, and we especially need to reduce demand for the fuel products these industries are selling as we start shifting towards alternatives.
Some of us might say: aren’t government and industry the only ones to blame for the mess we’re in? While we recognize that some share in responsibility far more than others, we also see that all our actions matter, and that supply and demand are tightly intertwined. Big industry relies on a big market to buy all the products they’re selling. When we move together, we the consumers have the power to start shifting this market. Our labels will help us to move in a better direction together.
Carbon pricing will provide the necessary quantitative signal to move markets; what we’re advocating for is different, but complimentary: a qualitative signal that connects us to the true humanity of the problem, and recognizes that ultimately, we can never measure the true value of life. We feel that this solution has the potential to move us as moral beings in a way that pricing signals often can’t, and will set a strong foundation on which many other solutions can take root.At the bottom of our labels will also be a link to a useful website called We Can Do Better, that will explore some of the options and alternatives available to us, challenging both individuals, government and industry to generally “do better”. We know that our society is capable of much, much better if only we would try.
We believe that, for the sake of both present and future generations, we can do better.
By passing this simple by-law, we can encourage all to become “Climate Change Champions”.
We need to be challenged if we are to solve climate change, yet currently there is no permanent signal in our culture telling us of the dangers of fossil fuels, which is one big reason why our markets fail to address these dangers. Our labels are that signal, and we have a plan in place to get them onto gas pumps first in Canada, and then all over the world. All our lives, burning fossil fuels has been a normal act that has gone unquestioned: these labels challenge us to think about the impacts of our energy use, and do better. By supporting us in working to pass this by-law, you can help make climate change history.
Please show your support
Please show your support for our recently launched Indiegogo crowd fund in support of our upcoming
cross-Canada tour, where we’ll be encouraging Canadians coast-to-coast – particularly youth – to advocate for this idea. In the battle for a livable planet, we recognize that there is strength in numbers – share us and we will be happy to do the same by calling out a big THANK YOU to you on Facebook and other social media.
We appreciate everyone’s support, and want nothing more than to see the whole world honestly stepping up to face climate change, and in doing so create a much brighter horizon. Thank you for all the hard work both you and your group are up to. We look forward to hearing from you as together we
#FaceTheChange.
Sincerely,
Kai and the Team at Our Horizon
