As I’ve sat by the shore of Lake Ontario for the last week, my view was limited by the smoke that had descended upon southern Ontario from the vast number of wild fires burning primarily throughout the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan…if that wasn’t serious enough, another heat advisory was issued.
In a letter I recently received from Senior’s For Climate, they referenced a CBC interview with a young woman in northern Saskatchewan, whose home was lost to a wildfire. When asked if she planned to move or stay and rebuild, she said she was staying: “Extreme weather is everywhere. Nowhere is safe”. As I looked out at the haze over the lake and occasionally caught whiffs of the smoke and felt some slight burning sensations in my eyes and a shortness of breath (from the heat as much as the smoke), I feared that she could be right…and I ask, ‘What are we doing?’
As Spirit sang:
“It’s Nature’s Way of telling you something’s wrong…
It’s Nature’s Way of telling you in a song…”
"Climate change will manifest itself as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it." - Mary-Lou Schagena
Here is part of a letter I received from RavenTrust recently. "While we know climate change is happening year-round, we often notice it more in the summer. The highs are getting higher, forests are on fire, ocean levels are rising, and summer storms leave damage in their wake. Feelings of anxiety, grief, anger, and frustration are normal responses to seeing the consequences of climate inaction on our doorsteps, and on our neighbours’ doorsteps, while our governments are nowhere to be seen, sliding back on climate promises, and pushing through more projects that will harm our already fragile ecosystems. It can feel hopeless. But where our governments fail, everyday people step in to fill the gaps with hope and action."
Canada is at a crossroads. We can choose a climate-safe future powered by clean energy, or allow the fossil fuel industry to drag us backwards. With pipelines dominating much of the current conversation on climate, organizations such as Environmental Defence are fighting to ensure that the values and priorities of people across Canada who are ready for real climate leadership are at the forefront of ensuring that the ‘One Canadian Economy Act’, which seeks to expedite infrastructure projects deemed in the national interest, is implemented without ignoring our essential need to end fossil fuel dependency and accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy.
Climate change is a 'threat multiplier', which means it is making many of our biggest environmental and societal problems go from bad to worse. If we don't get climate change under control quickly, the resulting disruption and destruction will make it much harder to address all the other issues we seek to solve.
I have been watching a fascinating series titled An Optimist’s Guide To The Planet, which went to where creative people, concepts and traditions around the globe were transforming environmental pessimism into hope. So, to end on a positive note, here is what the host said at the end of the series: “We humans are quite incredible with coming up with new ideas on both small and massive scales. We know the challenges we face are monumental but we will persevere. Failure simply isn’t an option…we will and we can solve this…even if it is the most difficult and complex challenge we’ve ever faced…and we will look toward a better, cleaner and brighter future together.” - Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from An Optimist’s Guide To The Planet
Hazy Toronto skyline photo courtesy of the Toronto Star.
