On Becoming a Political Person

My husband and I are at the Green Party of Canada biannual convention this weekend in Vancouver. Some lovely friends convinced us to come, and our shared hotel room has been like a grownup's slumber party. ;-) 

One of the nicest things about attending this convention has been running into dear old friends from the environmental movement who, like us, have found their political tribe in the Greens. Loved your new music video, The Gasoline Breakup Song, Franke and Billiam James! "Sound Activism" ... fabulous! And Dr. Warren Bell, it was good to reconnect after years of watching your continued online activism and involvement with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. (My hubby, Dr. Peter Carter, was a founding director of CAPE in the mid-1990s.)

Highlights? 

I'm going home psyched up to help people understand proportional representation (PR) so that they vote "YES" in my province's upcoming referendum on PR. Our first-past-the-post system puts all the power in the hands of one party, even if they have less than 50% of the votes. See Fair Vote Canada.

Elizabeth May's speech at Saturday night's banquet (the most vegetarian banquet I've ever attended!) was, in turns, quite moving and very rousing. What got the most resounding applause? When talking about the climate crisis, she said:

"The Green Party doesn't want to be a one issue party but if the one issue is survival then there is only one issue."
— Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada

Another highlight for me was the Saturday morning keynote address by Caroline Lucas, a British politician who in 2010 was elected the Green Party's first Member of Parliament. She said several things that resonated for me, for example: "You can't just bolt the environment onto business as usual." Exactly! We need a transformation in how we "do business." (You can watch her half-hour speech here, from 3:00 to 31:44 — https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyofCanada/videos/1825623187581859/.)

It's been interesting for me to observe my reactions at this political party convention. I'm proud to say that I helped Elizabeth May get elected twice now — she's my federal Member of Parliament — but it simply meant putting her bumper sticker on my little car and manning a Saturday table at the shopping centre in my tiny community before the election. I wasn't "involved in politics." It was something Caroline Lucas said that reminded me to be watching the political machinations this weekend:

"Complacency is a more dangerous enemy than denial."
— Caroline Lucas

And what I witnessed was a kinder, gentler political "beast" than I knew possible. Mind you, check out this refreshing UN address by New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, about her government's determination to focus on kindness. Kindness! Imagine that. (I've started her speech near the end, but it's worth listening to the whole thing.)

Don't get me wrong, the Green Party members in attendance at this convention got plenty excited at times and were generous with their standing ovations. They are certainly not a staid bunch. But the feeling here is that if they can't achieve their goals and still be decent people, then their goals aren't worth achieving. Souls are not for sale in the Green Party. People don't have to sell out any part of their beliefs or ideals. (Although my friendly amendment to a proposed policy to make it more ecologically literate in its wording — "people and other animals" instead of "animals and people" — was not accepted via the consensus process (too many red cards), which I'll admit was a bummer for this newbie. Our language choices can have a transformative effect, but some people either don't realize that, or are more comfortable with status quo — i.e., biblical — understandings of our species. But the consensus process worked to keep things rolling along ... and I can always try again another time.) 

Anyway, I just wanted to share my #GreenConv18 experiences with you. I hope that wherever you live and with whatever time you have available, you can contribute to making our political systems kinder, gentler, more ethical, and perhaps a tad more ecologically literate. 

Why Canada's Prime Minister Prorogued Parliament This Time*

This week, I received a copy of Franke James's Banned on the Hill: A True Story about Dirty Oil and Government Censorship. It's an adult "graphic novel" styled book about Franke's experience as a Canadian artist whose work was going to be shown in a 20-city European solo show with financial support from our federal government. 

The key word there is was, because that government support was withdrawn and the tour was cancelled. But what's worse is that the pressure to cancel this artistic initiative seemed to come directly from the PMO (the Prime Minister's Office) because the message of her art didn't, you know, jibe with the Conservative government's take on the tar sands (which, in a word, sucks). Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the PM and his O, Franke is not a quitter. Besides being an artist and a writer, she's also an environmental activist who deeply understands the climate crisis.

Now here is Not-Very-Prime Minister Harper proroguing parliament for the third time. According to the Globe and Mail:

"While Mr. Harper's uses of prorogation when he governed with a minority were controversial, majority governments often employ the procedure to signal a new legislative agenda. New sittings begin with a Speech from the Throne."

Here is what Franke doesn't know. I have it on good authority* that Stephen Harper's reason for proroguing the Canadian parliament this time is to figure out what his government is going to do to fight the climate change emergency.

Yes, Stephen Harper (according to my source*) has finally got it through his thick, er, primeministerly skull that continuing to pump 90 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day is not such a good idea after all. 

from Franke's book (used with permission)

He's finally recalling that he did indeed learn about the carbon cycle in school, and has acknowledged that methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is seeping into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost and destabilizing methane hydrates in the Arctic. 

He's at long last recognized the food security nightmare we're staring down as the Arctic's summer sea ice (the air conditioning for our growing season) disappears more and more in extent and/or volume each year.

My source* says that soon after his Throne Speech in mid-October, the Canadian Prime Minister is going to call on world leaders in government, business, religion, civil society and science to declare the climate change emergency and start the race to the zero-carbon economy. 

Reticence (aka, ahem, a flat-out refusal) to make that declaration is the only thing keeping us from launching (under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and through a UN Security Council motion) an all-out emergency response to the climate crisis and its impacts on billions of people — not to mention most other forms of life. 

So there it is! Another month or two and Prime Minister Stephen Harper will become a world-renowned global hero on climate change. All those Fossil of the Year awards that Canada has been winning? He will personally be returning them to the 2013 climate talks in Warsaw in November. 

I've got to say, I'm looking forward to once again being able to hold my head up high as a Canadian.

* Sadly, my source is my imagination.

Inspiration Versus Cynicism (Which One's Winning?)

Abandoned car in Toronto's flooding, July 2013

The last few weeks have been downright Biblical, haven't they? Killer wildfires. Persistent droughts. Flooding that took two major Canadian cities by surprise. The deadly wreck of an oil-transporting train in a small town in Quebec with a blast so big, it could be seen from space. Ireland is dealing with another potato crop failure after Europe's terrible winter. And, last but definitely not least given their importance, the pollinators (bees and butterflies) are missing from a friend's native flower garden.

Train explosion,
Lac Mégantic, Quebec

If a movie started like this, what the heck would the climax look like?

We're heading into it, folks. The climate change shit has begun to hit the fan. In local ways and global ways. In big ways and small ways. In frightening ways and imperceptible ways. Either way, it no longer feels far away. 

While I've been feeling fearful for the children and their future for many years (check out my early blog posts), I'm now starting to get a bit viscerally scared for myself and my family and community — a community that still doesn't understand the chaos that climate change will inflict on our food security. 

(For the same price, we could purchase a 200-acre farm or a 1.5 acre oceanfront property with chocolate lilies growing on it. Guess which one we're fundraising for? Next, we'll have a choice between buying that 200-acre farm or building a seniors home. Guess which one has captured the imagination of the mostly oldsters living in my community? For heaven's sake, they've already HAD their future! We truly are a culture that eats its children and grandchildren, to paraphrase Tom Brown, Jr.)

Anyway, all of this just to share some thoughts with you about inspiration versus cynicism. 

To start, I've been wondering how to stay "up" enough to not give up my work on behalf of the children. This video by John Marshall Roberts on the science of inspiration gives a clue or two:

Note the very last thing he shares: "Cynicism is undigested pain." So there's a clue, eh? Feel the pain, "digest" it, understand it, let it, um, pass through you. Let the pain come out the other end (to take the metaphor to its natural conclusion) not as cynicism but as resolve. 

How's this for inspiring? Not.

Then I read that fracking has dramatically increased the number of "manmade" earthquakes in North America. And then I read in the Guardian that climate scientist/hero James Hansen and colleagues have projected runaway global warming if we don't decarbonize. 

(By the way, for a good explanation of why Obama ≠ (does not equal) hope and optimism, check out The Obama Carbonized Climate Plan. His new "action" plan (ha!) encourages innovative new fossil fuel exploration and extraction ... old-fashioned devastation is not good enough for him. "Yes we can" lead the world to oblivion seems to be Obama's motto these days.)

It's like a seesaw, isn't it? Up then down, up then down. 

Then I saw something that really perked me up, because it suggests something that people CAN DO. (People often ask me, "What can I do?"* as though they really have no ideas of their own.) David Suzuki and Faisal Moola, writing in the Toronto Star following the fantastical rainfall and flooding of July 8th, suggested a strategy that can play out at several levels, from private homeowners to towns and cities and all institutions in between.

"So, knowing there will be dark, costly clouds on the horizon, how can we get ahead of the storm? One of the best strategies for dealing with severe weather events is to steal a page from Mother Nature’s playbook: bring nature home to the city through green, living infrastructure."

Yeah! That really resonated for me. Retrofitting yards and neighbourhoods and school playgrounds and city infrastructure will give us something to do to keep us from getting cynical while the climate change shit continues to hit the fan. But at least we'll be busy buffering ourselves from the worst of the increased natural disasters.

Suzuki and Moola explain that modern urban areas are almost entirely covered with impermeable concrete and asphalt. So when big storms and flooding surges hit, these cities (all built near water) are inundated (in more ways than one). 

"Nature doesn’t play this way. Natural ecosystems — like forests, fields, marshes and wetlands — are built to absorb rainfall and slow the flow of water as it passes through vegetation and soils and into waterways. Thus, incorporating natural systems into the built urban environment can effectively mitigate the intensity of storm surges. Interventions that bring together natural and built environments can range from large networks of interconnected green spaces to small-scale engineered systems, like green roofs, permeable pavement and green walls."

Indeed, one of Nature's most important gifts (or ecosystem services) is flood and erosion control. 

And lest you think this green retrofitting is pie-in-the-sky dreaming, check out Franke James's visual essay, Paradise Unpaved.

So, which is winning, inspiration or cynicism? It's rather like the weather in San Francisco. Wait 10 minutes and I'll have a different answer for you. 

* or some variation:
What can I do?
What can I do?
What can I do?
What can I do?
Usually this question, in any form, means "I'm not really interested in doing anything." Perhaps apathy is the greatest form of cynicism.

When Insanity and Evil Meet Head-On

This has been a sad week, for democracy, for freedom, for free speech ... and for environmental activists of all ilks, along with unassuming backyard (and front yard) growers, and single moms with tragic stories.

Let me share some stories with you to show what happens when insanity and evil meet — and egg each other on.

1. Tim DeChristopher was sentenced the other day to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Tim has become a hero, especially in the United States (centre of the universe when it comes to insanity teaming up with evil ... but beware, it's contagious) where he protested an illegal auction of public lands for oil and gas drilling by bidding on land he didn't have the money to buy. Sounds more prankish to me than criminal — making his prison term outrageous, considering that the people responsible for BP's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill and America's financial meltdown have served exactly ZERO TIME in jail. But the story of his act of civil disobedience is deeper than it sounds. Please take the time to read the official statement Tim read at his sentencing hearing. It's a chilling indictment of what Will Potter, in his new book Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, calls "coordinated campaigns to target and repress dissident voices" and "using fear to push a political agenda."
2. Our friends, Dirk Becker and Nicole Shaw (I've talked about them before), own a piece of land in a rural/suburban part of Vancouver Island that was devastated by its previous owner who scraped it bare of its topsoil, sand and gravel, presumably selling off all those materials by the truckload. When Dirk bought the land, it was 4 feet lower than the neighbouring properties — a big hole. Over the years, he and Nicole have built the soil back up and turned their large backyard into a green garden oasis by inviting landscapers and local farms to drop off grass clippings, wood chips and manure to be composted. The District of Lantzville is now threatening legal action — apparently growing food in their backyard to sell at a local farmers market is an illegal commercial use of their land, even though scraping it bare and selling it off wasn't. You can read their story here. The situation keeps getting crazier and crazier and now the Lantzville Council has told Dirk and Nicole that they can't be street vendors at the town's street fair in September. How small minded and petty can you get?
3. Then there's the woman in Oak Park, Michigan who planted veggies (oooh, scary vegetables!) in her front yard after it was torn up for sewer repair or some such thing. Oak Park charged her with misdemeanours for growing "unsuitable" and "uncommon" plants, and threatened her with three months in jail when she didn't comply by tearing up her raised beds. After a social media hullabaloo, the town decided not to proceed, but instead started harassing her about dog licenses that she had already purchased. Truly our world is going bonkers.
4. Raquel Nelson, an Atlanta-area single mom of three children, was convicted of second-degree vehicular homicide after a hit-and-run driver struck and killed her 4-year-old son while they were jaywalking one night after getting off a bus. Not a single one of her jurors had ever taken public transit, so it was definitely not a jury of her peers. And how the hell can you be convicted of vehicular homicide when you're the one on foot? I just don't get it. Raquel was threatened with three years in prison, which would have taken her away from her other two children at a devastating time in their lives. I am happy to report that the sentencing judge separated insanity from evil and did not send her to jail. Raquel received 12 months probation and 40 hours of community service. (The man who hit her son spent six months in jail.) I cried tears of relief when I heard her news.
5. And finally, here's one that made me feel sick to my stomach because it happened to a friend and it came from high places — in my own country. Eco-artist Franke James was invited to put on a solo art show in Europe, organized by NGO Nektarina, a Croatian non-profit dedicated to "educating, connecting and inspiring people to care about their communities and their environment." Oooooh, scary stuff! Turns out Canada's Conservative government (you know, the party that won the election with only 40% of the vote of only 60% of eligible voters) can't stand that Franke, who actually has brains and a conscience along with wit and talent, has questioned the environmental wisdom of its leader. Read the story of bullying, intimidation and coercion here.
6. And let's not even mention the story of the young girls who had their lemonade stand shut down by police. For heaven's sake!!!

Folks, there are some seriously nutzoid people running our countries and our communities. And their stranglehold of a worldview based on unceasing economic growth with ecological suicide on the side is, it is increasingly clear, pure evil. If we don't start acting up and being highly vigilant, we'll be going down the tubes faster than even the climate change emergency will take us.

Sanity and compassion, repeat after me. Sanity and compassion, sanity and compassion, sanity and compassion.

170 Days - Compassionate Climate Change Solution #6 Get Ready for Alternative Transportation

Are you old enough to remember when flying was still special? I am. And I have a dear elderly friend who is old enough to remember when nobody took airline flights. They stayed home, walked, or took the wagon (or the sleigh in winter).

Getting to zero greenhouse gas emissions means changing how we do things, and one of the most interesting things we're going to change is how we get around. No more "I popped to Los Angeles for the weekend" or "I'm heading home to see my family in Australia for the holiday."

Nope, people are going to start living where they're born. And vacationing close to home. What a concept!

In the meantime, here are ways to get ready for the alternative forms of transportation that we should all be calling for:

• Get fit. Think about transportation for a moment. Have our legs (at least in the developed nations) truly become vestigial, like our appendixes? Have cars replaced our legs, like prosthetics? Let's start using our legs again, by walking and bicycling. If we start young, or get back in shape and then stay in shape, we'll be able to walk to our graves!
• Take a Hundred Mile/Kilometre Vacation. A change is as good as a rest, so you don't have to go far to go on vacation. Become a tourist in your hometown. Swap homes with a friend across town. Stay in a local fancy hotel or theme motel. Want to go further afield? Take a bus or train, a bicycle path or a subway to the end of the line. Get off. Explore.
• Join the Slow Movement. Just slow down. So what if dinner isn't eaten til 8 pm? Don't head out to insert-name-of-fast-food-joint here (on your prosthetic, fossil-fuelled wheels!) because you're tired after work or can't think of what to cook right away. Relax. Take your time. Say no to commitments that will make you rush through dinner. Or start out earlier and walk and talk and nibble.
• Learn to love staying home! Sleep on your balcony or in your guestroom or backyard. Make your home cozy. Get to know your neighbours. Plant a garden and enjoy watching it grow. Literally ... take a cup of tea into the garden every day and see what's changed. It's a delight! Take up a winter hobby that creates something (embroidery, woodworking, gourmet cooking) — spending more time at home does not mean spending more time watching TV. Volunteer at a local food bank, hospital or seniors centre (that you can walk, bicycle or bus to).

The point is that times are changing and we have to get ourselves weaned off fossil-fuel dependent forms of transportation. Why not start now while it's a fun challenge? Oh, you don't think this will be a fun challenge? Well, as my friend, visual essayist Franke James, says, "Do the hardest thing first!" (She got rid of her SUV altogether.)