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.

Guest Post: "A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE"

When I read Antonia Paquin's "short rant" this morning, I asked her right away if I could post it here for you. Antonia is a young friend nearby who gives her life's energy to ensuring a future for us all. Much love to you, Antonia, with thanks for sharing this with my readers!

Antonia Paquin, in Victoria (with thanks to Creatively United)

A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE

Sometimes I find myself disconnecting from the word "climate," because it seems obscure and somewhat nebulous unless you're a scientist who studies this stuff.

I've found the following to be helpful in bringing "climate" into my immediate experience:

• Notice the breath you just took ... now the one you are about to take. You are taking climate into your body.
• Look outside, look around you, really LOOK, noticing the trees, the sky, the soil. You are looking at the climate.
• Feel your heartbeat ... touch your fingers to your wrist, or neck to feel your pulse, or just feel your body moving ever-so-slightly by your heart beating. You are a living creature, interacting with your surroundings. We are also climate.

Remember the Earth is extremely resilient. She knows how to heal herself. Humans are also resilient. We can adapt to change. Though the world feels grim right now, especially with this messy [Canadian federal] election, we are inevitably forced to call into question the major systemic failings that have led us to where we are, which is a good thing!

We are being collectively called to question the ideologies, and the political and economic systems that led us into this mess, the colonial way: "Dominate people, dominate land, YOU SHALL HAVE NO HEART."

This is the movement to end all movements.

We are now being called to decolonize the crap out of ourselves and remember who the hell we are as humans.

Could it be that humans aren't somehow above the natural world?

Could it be that we don't have the right to pillage and rape the Earth?

Could it be that humans are actually inextricably ~connected~ to the Earth?? WOW! You don't say?

David Suzuki, our beloved national man of science, is preaching this message loud and clear. Time to wake up and smell the soil, friends!

Here's how we "fix the climate":

• Tune into what Indigenous land defenders and water protectors have been saying for hundreds of years. Support these movements with your money, time, energy. Uplift voices of black and indigenous folks, people of colour.
• Breathe deep, ground yourself in gentleness and self-compassion so that you feel safe. Then take time to call into question your own belief systems, assumptions, attitudes. We can all do this together.
• Have "adventure conversations" with others. Bring up things like climate, the human condition, hope, guilt, fear, grief, love.
• Vulnerability is powerful. Connect deeply with your fellow humans, know that they probably have similar fears and doubts that you have, and when we share ... it can be so healing.
• Cry and cry and cry, then laugh. It's okay to feel like a mess. [This is my favourite line! JJ]
• Spend time in nature, FOREST BATHING, to remember that Earth is magical and resilient. Every single cell in your body is made of the Earth. The trees and rocks and rivers are your kin. 
• In so many ways you are also magical and resilient. Often our minds forget this, but somehow our hearts can never fully forget this. 

Okay, my rant is over. 

Thank you. I love you. 

*****

And our thanks and love to YOU, Antonia, for these wonderful calls to reconnect ourselves with our first mother.

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.

144 Days to Go - Let's Do Some Compassion Math

If you watched the David Suzuki speech on the 145 Days post, you'll have heard some sad statistics.

The world's 50 least developed countries (LDCs) have contributed less than 1 one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but are reaping over 95 per cent of the impacts.

Here are those numbers are again:

50 LDCs + <1% ghgs =" ">95% of impacts

And here are those countries (in alphabetical order):

1. Afghanistan
2. Angola
3. Bangladesh
4. Benin
5. Bhutan
6. Burkina Faso
7. Burundi
8. Cambodia
9. Cape Verde
10. Central African Republic
11. Chad
12. Comoros
13. Democratic Republic of the Congo
14. Djibouti
15. Equatorial Guinea
16. Eritrea
17. Ethiopia
18. Gambia
19. Guinea
20. Guinea-Bissau
21. Haiti
22. Kiribati
23. Lao People's Democratic Republic
24. Lesotho
25. Liberia
26. Madagascar
27. Malawi
28. Maldives
29. Mali
30. Mauritania
31. Mozambique
32. Myanmar
33. Nepal
34. Niger
35. Rwanda
36. Samoa
37. Sao Tome and Principe
38. Senegal
39. Sierra Leone
40. Solomon Islands
41. Somalia
42. Sudan
43. Timor-Leste
44. Togo
45. Tuvalu
46. Uganda
47. United Republic of Tanzania
48. Vanuatu
49. Yemen
50. Zambia

Check this UN webpage for the list of criteria for inclusion. Note the recommendation that the Maldives "graduate" from LDC status — I wonder if the fact that their country is disappearing due to global climate disruption and sea level rise will influence that decision.

Please visit Global Islands Network for information on all the small island nations that are disappearing.

My heart goes out to these countries and these people. Imagine this kind of poverty and lack of development exacerbated by the impacts of global warming. Once again, there but for the grace of the Universe go I.

23 Days - It's Time to Listen

It's Time to Listen is a new youth-driven initiative that is asking Canadians (steal this idea in other countries!) to demand leadership from elected officials by flooding phone lines every Monday.

If you're in Canada, please follow up. If you live somewhere else, do the same thing in your country ... or hey! phone our Prime Minister of the Alberta Tar Sands. Here's their communiqué:

*****

This December in Copenhagen, world leaders will meet to negotiate an international climate treaty. I cannot tell you how essential it is, for the future of life on earth, that our leaders come up with a fair, ambitious and binding agreement. There are only 23 days until Copenhagen — we must act fast.

Every single day I worry about what the future has in store if we/our leaders fail in Copenhagen, and everyday I work hard to demand action from our Canadian government, but I can't do it alone; we need to do this together. We need to tell our government that leadership at the UN Climate Summit, investment in clean energy and action on green jobs are the most important issues to us. They need to know that we're not going away and our numbers are growing. I am asking you to join hundreds of people across the country every Monday in calling our MPs and asking them to please listen, to commit to environmental justice (more info below), and to protect our future.

Last week in Barcelona, African countries walked out of UN climate talks because some rich countries like Canada are refusing to commit to deep cuts to global warming pollution, and Canada won the "Fossil of the Week" award at the same talks for being the most unhelpful country. We need to work together to change all of this. It will only take 3 minutes of your time, a small commitment given the severity of the climate crisis. As youth who are going to have to deal with the impacts of climate change, we really need all the help we can get.

There is more info below but here are the basics...

If you have never done this before, here is a little video (that's our Pedal for the Planet friend, Nadia in the video) that demonstrates how easy it is! And here's a script you can use in case you aren't sure of what to say....

"Hi, my name is _________ and I would like to leave a message for _______________ to tell him (her?) that Canada must commit to environmental justice in Copenhagen. It is not fair that those who have contributed least to the problem of climate change are, and will be, suffering the most. To do this, we want him to target funding to protect impacted communities including the North, rural communities and Indigenous communities and to commit Canada to world class climate targets like those in Bill C-311. Thanks, have a good day."

Here is the number and MPs to call in Canada....

CALL 1 (866) 599-4999 & ASK FOR THEM - OR USE THEIR DIRECT LINES LISTED BELOW TO GET STRAIGHT TO THEIR STAFF.

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister - Harper.S@parl.gc.ca - (613) 992-4211
Jim Prentice, Minister of the Environment - Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca - (613) 992-4275
James Bezan, Chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee - Bezan.J@parl.gc.ca - (613) 992-2032

Tell the following opposition MPs the same thing...

Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Opposition - Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca - (613) 995-9364
David McGuinty, Environment Critic for the Official Opposition - McGuinty.D@parl.gc.ca - (613) 992-3269
Frank Scarpaleggia, Vice-Chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee - Scarpaleggia.F@parl.gc.ca - (613) 995-8281

We are organizing it for every Monday (with a different theme) until Copenhagen but if that doesn't work for you, you can do it anytime, all the time. That said, when we do it all together, it demonstrates our unity and commitment and sends an even stronger message. So mark down Mondays on your calendar!

If you would like to do more than call, please sign up a location to host a "Climate Crew Monday." 
Email domesticactions@ourclimate.org to get a Climate Crew Starter Kit - and remember that only a few people is a great way to start. Here's a link to an online form to sign up a location for a Climate Crew - http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHJsSVpuajFYbUltX25wdkJJNTZ3QkE6MA

This is what youth across the country did last week.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-Ecq0O0y8

Please, please, please pass this message along to your family and friends, we need to flood the phone lines.

Let me know if you have any questions or need more info.

Sad, angry, scared and full of HOPE,

Nadia


More information on the Campaign

This campaign is called "It's Time to Listen"--a youth-led six week campaign in the lead-up to Copenhagen with a different theme each week for each of the Power Shift Principles

Oct. 26 - Time for politicians to listen
Nov. 2 - Reduce emissions now
Nov. 9 - Commit to environmental justice
Nov. 16 - Invest in clean energy, not tar sands
Nov. 23 - Create effective green jobs
Nov. 30 - Lead Canada to be part of a progressive global deal in Copenhagen

We're going to use a mixture of flash dances, quick actions, special missions, emails, videos, letters, phone calls and good ol' face-to-face communication to:

1: Tell our government that climate leadership at the UN Climate Summit at Copenhagen, investment in clean energy and action on green jobs are the most important issues to us. They need to know that we're not going away and our numbers are growing.

2: Make climate leadership at the UN Climate Summit at Copenhagen, investment in clean energy and action on green jobs the #1 issue for Canadians.

Sign up a location for a Climate Crew/Be part of a Climate Crew near you

This week our focus is on committing to environmental justice. Our Climate Crews are doing a range of actions from a "freeze" while one person calls out environmental justice facts, to a group of people representing poor countries with tape over their mouths to show that they don't have enough voice in these decisions, to a rich country/poor country face-off that ends with either a poor country "die-in" if the rich countries refuse to act or a mutual "gratitude dance" if the rich countries commit to be climate leaders.

You are welcome to think of your own action to promote environmental justice (but please don't break the law, trespass or put anyone's health or property at risk).

We will turn photos and videos from this action in an awesome video and viral email to get more and more Canadians plugged in to the campaign and acting. We'll also use the video and viral email to build to next week. So please take pictures and video of your action so we have evidence of all the support for environmental justice. You can upload the photos to the facebook page and there will be instructions for video upload on the facebook event.

You can find a list of locations on the facebook event - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191944257603 - We want to get 50 locations accross the country doing weekly flash dances and quick actions by the end of this campaign.

If there is a location near you then you just need to show up at the right time, and bring a cell phone or signs with the theme of the week with you.

If there is not a location near you it is easy to sign one up, and easy to get a Climate Crew going.

Email domesticactions@ourclimate.org to get a Climate Crew Starter Kit - and remember that only a few people is a great way to start.

Here's a link to an online form to sign up a location for a Climate Crew - http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHJsSVpuajFYbUltX25wdkJJNTZ3QkE6MA

Since we're geographically scattered we're using a coordinated and unifying tactic to raise awareness and project unity. If you're planning on doing something really different please get in contact with us (250-858-6057) to talk about how the action works within the broader campaign strategy.

FINALLY, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD BY SHARING THIS EMAIL AND JOINING THE FACEBOOK PAGE - http://www.facebook.com/ListenEcouter

What is Environmental Justice?


It might be easier to explain environmental "injustice." Think of Canada's Inuit. They have lived on the sea ice for generations hunting seals and other important food sources, but have only contributed to greenhouse gas pollution for just over 50 years. As climate change melts the sea ice the Inuit lose not only their ability to hunt and provide for their families, they lose an integral part of their culture and spirituality.

In Bangladesh, farmers sow and harvest simple crops like beans, rice and lentils. Many use oxen for this task, not being able to afford a tractor or other motorized equipment. These poor farmers contribute very little to the world's skyrocketing carbon dioxide levels, but are at risk of losing everything to climate change. Rising sea levels combined with more violent storms are starting to force salt water inland, destroying valuable crops. Farmers are now faced with an uncertain future where each year could bring starvation.

Climate change, in combination with other land-use factors, is turning once habitable land into desert; this process is known as "desertification." The United Nations has claimed that desertification is the "greatest environmental challenge of our times," and estimates that two billion people world wide could be victims of desertification in the future. Many of the victims of desertification live in Africa. As with so many other vulnerable populations whos lives have been devastated by climate change, these people produce almost no greenhouse gases and have done almost nothing to cause the problem of global warming.

The key point is that climate change has the biggest impact on poor people that did little to cause it, whether they live in Canada's north, Canada's rural and Indigenous communities, Bangladesh's flood plains, or the rapidly desertifying parts of Africa. This is injust, you could even call it a climate crime.

How does Canada play into this? Well, we have one of the largest per capita rates of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, and we have been emitting greenhouse gases en masse for over 100 years. In short, we are a nation that has helped cause the world's climate change crisis. Not only have we helped create the problem, we have more money and resources to do something about climate change, and to deal with the negative effects, than most countries around the world.

We need to step up and do our part to reduce emissions, here in Canada and around the world. We also need to provide aid for developing countries and vulnerable populations that are being threatened by climate change. When Canada attends the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen this December, we need to push for an agreement that commits rich, industrialized countries to science-based emissions reduction targets, and that provides aid for developing countries to deal with the devastating effects of climate change.

That is what we mean by "environmental justice." Can you help us spread the word to Canadians and talk to our government?

Thank you!

Nadia Nowak
Student, UNBC Environmental Planning
E-mail: northernATcampusclimatenetwork.org


"If you can't fix it, please stop breaking it."
— Severn Cullis-Suzuki