Our Canadian Constitutional Right to Life — and the Right Not to Be Deprived Thereof

I've been quite buoyed lately by the hard work and legal successes of Our Children's Trust in the United States. It's one NGO that my hubby and I are proud and happy to contribute money (and some time) to.  

I've written about OCT before, here.  Their mandate is to secure the legal right to a stable climate and a healthy atmosphere for all present and future generations.

Ah, those pesky future generations. I've written about them before, too -- here, and here, and here. So today I'd like to tell you what I just found out. Guess what the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Constitution Act, 1982) guarantees to all Canadians? Yup, "life, liberty and security of person." Here's what that means: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

So folks, on the basis of our constitutionally enshrined (ooh, listen to me, all legalesy) legal right #7, we should be suing the @$$es off the federal and provincial governments that aren't taking the climate change emergency seriously! 

And while we're at it, take a look at 15. (1) under the section called Equality Rights: "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability."

Did you catch that part about age? Children, in other words, also have the right to a secure future. So let's support Our Children's Trust - Canada and get our legal challenges by young people and on behalf of future generations going.

CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982 (80)

PART I

CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

 Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms

Rights and freedoms in Canada

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Under the section called Legal Rights
 
Life, liberty and security of person

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Then, under the section called Equality Rights
 
Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Under the section Enforcement
 
Enforcement of guaranteed rights and freedoms

24. (1) Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.

When Did So Many of Us Become So ... Um, Dumb?

Duh!

Still reeling from the dimwitted (not to mention progenycidal) approval of yet another fossil fuel production facility in my Canadian province -- at a time when we need to be shutting down fossil fuel production and heading rapidly to zero-carbon energy -- I stumbled upon a recent article that really demonstrates how governments can get away with this. It's because we're, um, well, dumb.

The article in question was published on a prominent business website, usually known for its sane coverage of the climate crisis (though, to be fair, they made a point of putting "This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board of So-and-So Company and its owners" at the end of the article).

What disturbed me most and made me question our intelligence in this North American culture of ours is that the author compares climate scientists to economists and climate change science to macroeconomics. Her dimwitted thesis is that because economists couldn't seem to model and predict what was going to happen with the economy (I can, by the way: without a revolution, the economy is going to keep making the rich richer), climate scientists can't predict what's going to happen with the climate.

C'mon. Really? You're comparing the dismal pseudo-science of economics with the laws of physics studied by climate scientists? Really? That's idiotic.
 
Then this author insults those of us who understand the climate change emergency by implying that "lukewarmists" are more rational than we so-called "alarmists" are (obviously forgetting that it's not alarmist to sound the alarm when something is alarming). "[Lukewarmists] say that warming is likely to be mild unless you use a model which assumes large positive feedback effects. Because climate scientists, like the macroeconomists, can't run experiments where they test one variable at a time, predictions of feedback effects involve a lot of theory and guesswork."

How can an educated-enough-to-write-for-a-fancy-business-website columnist write that and not laugh at the ludicrousness of it?

Why is this a ludicrous argument? Well, first, because the sentence structure implies that a computer model is the only thing keeping "mild" global warming from becoming hotter global warming.

It's also ludicrous because things are getting pretty scary all over the world already. For example, although fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions don't appear to have increased since 2014, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are increasing at a frighteningly accelerating rate.

And finally, it's ludicrous because we already have evidence that climate change models have been underestimating the impacts of global warming, not the other way around.

Besides, all the nations that attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and signed on to Agenda 21 agreed to the precautionary principle, which means we shouldn't fall prey to this asinine pretension called lukewarmism -- especially when we're already locked in to dangerously high global warming, with catastrophically dangerous heating just over the horizon.

So are we simply dumb -- too dumb to think critically about the climate crisis and about articles like the one I read? Perhaps all the toxics in our air, land and water have damaged many of us neurologically and intellectually to the point where we're no longer capable of critical thought. 

But I suspect the "powers that be" are happy to have dulled us and numbed us and dumbed us down so we'll be like those frogs in the proverbial pot of water, never complaining about the intensifying heat -- allowing them and their toadies (including that writer) to continue battering life on Earth with their evil, moronic greed.

A Slow Implosion

If you watch the news -- and even if you don't -- you might be noticing that we're a society, a culture in slow motion implosion ... causing the breakdown of ecosystems. We are imploding. We are re-enacting the fall of Rome in some sort of collective death wish. And Rome wasn't ruined in a day.

What led to the fall of Rome?

• decadence
• corruption
• depravity
• lead poisoning (Flint, Michigan, anyone?)
• violence and killing for entertainment
• killing off biodiversity

Sound familiar? Their solution? Bread and circuses. Keep the masses numbed and dumbed, and carry on ruining things. (They don't call them Roman ruins for nothing!) We're following in Rome's footsteps, but this time we're threatening the ability of the entire biosphere to support life.

I know there were Romans who knew and saw what was happening. But the majority? They must have been doing the Roman equivalent of Facebook, shopping at the mall, and crack cocaine. 

So I dunno.

The aggression and fear that arise in response to perceived threats are some of the most intense emotions we ever experience. For human society to function at all, these instinctive reactions have to be carefully managed and channeled. Outbreaks of panic and hate are dangerous, but lower levels of aggression and fear help keep a population controllable and productive. Restrained aggression keeps people suspicious of collective action and working hard to overcome their fellows, while constant, generalized anxiety keeps people servile, unwilling to take risks, and yearning for comfort from whatever quarter, whether the dulling sameness of herd thought or the dumb security of consumer goods. 
— Roy Scranton, from Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization (and found in Adbusters, Post - West issue, 2016)

By the way ... that slow implosion? It's picking up speed. Do you know where the emergency exits are?

The Curse — and the Blessing — of Feeling Deeply

A lovely friend left this Earth on Monday. Rather than let cancer ravage her brain, she chose assisted dying -- while she was still joyful ... radiant ... luminous. With everything unimportant stripped away, she gained a wisdom beyond her years. Visiting her in hospital was like receiving darshan from a cherished guru.

I don't know what to do with all my mixed emotions. Grief at the loss of a friend (and at the thought of her partner's deep sorrow and loneliness). Gratitude that I have special memories of time spent together. A sense of purposelessness (after all, if it's that easy to no longer exist on this physical plane, then ...). Some (dare I admit it) anger that she didn't wait longer to give miracles a chance. Blessed to have been some small part of her living, and dying, well.

And yet I wouldn't trade these deep emotions and mixed feelings for anything. They are my lifeblood. They are what make me work so hard for the children of all species. The deep sadness and raging anger at the fossil fuel greed that is making the future a thing of the past juxtaposed with the utter joy and delight that children offer us. The sense of foreboding (knowing too much about how rapidly this climate change emergency is playing out, still with no concerted global mitigation) together with a complete sense of awe and contentment when the sun shines a certain way through the trees.

When I die, I want to be as lighthearted as my friend was. And my sense now is that the only way I'll be able to make that dream come true is to keep working, on behalf of all the children of all species, to avert planetary disaster.

My deep emotions keep me connected to the global problems -- and fighting for their solution.