TorStar, world newspapers, wage climate-change fight

Most journalists strive never to become part of the story — except in life-or-death cases when our humanity demands action. The Toronto Star has decided that climate change is such a case — it joined 55 other newspapers around the world to demand action, not in an editorial, but in a front-page story. Excerpt:

“Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

“Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.”