145 Days Until Copenhagen - Apology from an Ashamed Canadian

It seems I live in a country that has decided that money is more important than life. We (collectively ... no one that I know personally!) voted in a prime minister who has no regard for his children's future, let alone the future of all the children, of all species. He is, however, quite interested in the future of Alberta tar sands investments.

(They just don't get that we can leave the oil in the ground, as a carbon sink, and not worry about it - it's not going anywhere! It will still be there when we've worked out viable carbon sequestration technology. Call it a long-term investment!)

Although I suspect our prime minister has agreed to be the fall guy, the bad cop to Barack Obama's good cop (guess which country is getting most of our tar sands oil?), that does not excuse his behaviour on the world stage as The Great Obfuscator. It is certainly because of our prime minister and his policies that Canada keeps winning the Fossil Award at international climate meetings.

So right here, right now, I would like to apologize and say that I am sorry for my country's uncompassionate behaviour, increasing greenhouse gases, and stonewalling strategies on climate change.

And here, to say it even better, is Canada's best known environmentalist, Dr. David Suzuki, speaking at the Vancouver send-off of the Pedal for the Planet participants, who are bicycling across this vast country to take a message about the urgency of climate change to our prime minister.

Watch to the very end and you'll see our young friend, Nadia, who is one of the people cycling across the country.

147 Days - If Everybody Did a Little Bit...

...no one would have to do it all.

As I watch my favourite up-close climate heroes - my husband (Climate Change Emergency Medical Response), our wonderful ecoSanity.org friend Glenn, and our great young friends who are spending their summer cycling across Canada (it's a vast country!) to raise the alarm on climate change - I must admit that I get peeved.

These people are working tirelessly, day in, day out, long hours, long nights, giving it everything they've got (time, money and energy).

Yet I still don't see that uprising, that bandwagon, the joining in, the crest of wild concern that will turn the tide. Why can't everyone else just do a little bit so that I can have my husband back? So that Glenn can make his life sane again? So that ... well, our young friends are probably having a ton of fun on their Pedal for the Planet trip.

If everybody did a little bit, no one would have to do it all, or give it their all. Practically everyone, practically everywhere (at least certainly in the developed world) can spare an hour a week to learn, talk and write about the global climate change emergency.

Do they? No, they fill their empty hours with television, or video games, or twittering, for heaven's sake! (I would rather they spent that time outside, listening to the real twittering of the real birds. At least then they would feel some connection to what's being lost, and perhaps some compassion for the birds and other gifts from the Earth who are facing the climate change emergency, too!)

Having said that, I think I might just try Twittering (whatever the heck it is). My "accidental environmentalist" friend says it would make sense for what I'm trying to get across to people:

"You can type in 'climate change' on the far right to look up topics and see what people are buzzing about. It's the perfect thing for your messages!"

So, if my friend thinks it will help, I might as well give it a try. Right? Maybe all that twittering (tweeting?) will save the world. Maybe our political leaders are following our twitters. Maybe while people are twittering and tweeting, they're not driving and buying and consuming and eating meat and burning fossil fuels (all those things that turn into greenhouse gas emissions). Maybe, just maybe, Twitter could become a way for everyone to do their little bit.

(Note to self, however: Do not hold breath.)

167 Days - Message to Young People: TAKE BACK YOUR PLANET!

We've been meeting once a week with a young friend I've told you about before who will be bicycling thousands of kilometres across Canada this summer to carry the message that global climate change has become a planetary emergency.

What my husband took to the meeting today resonated for each of us. Here is his simple yet excellent idea (which apparently grew out of something he read about what young people in India are calling for):

Youth in all countries and states or provinces could demand to have deputy-minister-level representatives (chosen by them) to represent their "vested" interest in a viable future and a climate-safe planet. These chosen young people (or perhaps, in some cultures, trusted elders?) would participate in all government energy and climate change policy discussions and decisions.

Their message at every table would be climate justice for all today's youth!

Our young friend loved this idea. We hope the idea flies around the world, and that young people everywhere demand the right to take back their planet.

184 To Go - What Children Don't Know Will Hurt Them: Let's Teach the Carbon Cycle, Deeply!

A dear young friend spoke to the Eco Club at my school the other day. It was unseasonably hot, so they gathered in the shade under some trees in the school yard.

Nadia and her sister are joining other Canadian youth this summer in bicycling across this vast country to make people aware of climate change and its threats to their future. (She's one of my climate heroes!)

Before telling the students about her trip, and about the sustainable transportation event she's planning here in our community before she goes, she asked them what they know about climate change.

Educators everywhere, listen up! Our children do not understand the carbon cycle. They do not understand global warming. They do not understand climate change. And they certainly do not understand how it threatens their future. They are still stuck in the "Don't Litter" mode.

Now, if you look at GreenHeart's Green School Curriculum Model, you'll see that I believe (or at least I still want to believe) that we can wait until students are about 12 years old before we start focusing their attention on environmental solutions. (Get it? They will need to understand the problems before they work on the remedies, but their focus is positive and creative.)

But starting before then (at about age 8 or 9), students must learn how the Earth works and how life works on Earth. Knowing both carbon cycles (long and short) should be required for graduation from elementary school; full ecological literacy should be a requirement for secondary school graduation.

Two or three carbon-cycle-illiterate generations are responsible for the mess we're in. Let's make sure the students in our care become a generation that is creating the solutions instead of perpetuating the problems.

For more information, visit

• Global Warming as the Overarching Focus of Curriculum for Sustainability
• Climate Change Primer