It’s Hallowe’en Friday, 2020. Sophia Mathur and friends have been climate striking on Friday afternoons for 2 full years. Doctor AIR Care emerges on the street for an interview. She’s blunt, as usual. We can’t continue treating the Climate Emergency with homeopathic remedies. Politicians need to “GET some GUTS.”

Sophia: So Doctor AIR Care, today I’m going to ask you some questions about climate change. You’ve been examining the planet . . . what’s the diagnosis? 

Dr. AC: Well, Sophia, the planet has a terrible fever, and to be quite honest, she looks kind of sunken too. If we’re not awfully careful, she just might die. 

Sophia: Oh, that’s terrible . . . well, it that’s the diagnosis, then what’s the cause? Why is this happening? 

Dr. AC: Well, to be perfectly blunt, She’s choking to death on our greenhouse gas emissions. 

Sophia: That’s terrible! What can we do about this? What’s the cure? 

Dr. AC: Well, here’s what I think. If your child was diagnosed with leukaemia, you wouldn’t give the kid homeopathic treatments when all the doctors were recommending three years of intensive chemotherapy, would you?? 

Sophia: No! I’d do what the scientists say. 

Dr. AC: That’s right. We need to listen to our climate scientists, and they’re saying we need to cut our emissions in half by 2030 and eliminate them altogether by 2050. So our politicians need to GET SOME GUTS. They need to put those targets into LAW, and they need to start making it HAPPEN. And while they’re doing it, they’d better pay attention to justice and equity and rights of Indigenous peoples too!