Saying no to coal

With the June 17th Alberta Energy Regulator's decision against the Grassy Mountain Coal development in Southern Alberta, ranchers, farmers, environmentalists, First Nations communities and people like me are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

For a few minutes, anyway.

But there are more coal projects in the works, and it's important that Albertans continue to fight against the decapitation of our gorgeous rockies, the destruction of our wilderness, and the pollution of the prairie provinces' river headwaters that many of us eventually drink, never mind the habitat of many creatures that are already endangered.

So the Council of Canadians has these wonderful lawn signs (above) that are available to help interested people make others aware of the issues, and they have also made it easy to send an email to the Alberta Coal Policy Committee that is reviewing the other potential coal developments. You can access a link to their email campaign by clicking here, or click here to request a lawn sign. 

Tomorrow I will be participating in a brochure campaign to keep the issue in the forefront of peoples' minds. In the meantime, I encourage you to check out the links above, and to share information with the people around you. Coal strip mining is the last thing we need to be doing in a world that's in the midst of a climate crisis. Let's protect our rockies and headwaters for the sake of future generations.

Supporting our Healthcare Workers

I don't generally moodle about real-time events, but this is worth posting here. Our healthcare workers need our help and support against a government that is more interested in the financial bottom line than the human one. If you are able, consider helping in one of the ways mentioned below. If you can't give support in person, consider writing letters, using social media, and contacting your MLA directly.

This info was sent to me by Climate Justice Edmonton, some fine people with whom I've had some positive connections in the past. I am happy to share it here, though not happy with our government for causing this crisis for our front line workers in the middle of a pandemic!

Healthcare workers across Alberta started a wildcat strike today.

Workers are protesting privatization and layoffs. The general services and LPN workers who initiated the strike are some of the lowest paid and most vulnerable public sector workers. Their courage is absolutely inspiring.

Never forget: patient care conditions are working conditions! Standing up for these workers shows that patients (all of us!) deserve to receive high quality care within the universal public system. Privatization and layoffs threaten pay for already low-paid workers and the quality of care for patients.

Supporting this strike is essential for us in the environmental/climate justice movement. Climate justice is environmental justice. Climate justice is health justice. Climate justice is racial justice.

Here's how you can show up for healthcare workers right now:
The #1 thing you can do is go to a picket line! You can find out where strikes are happening in this thread. Bring a sign!

Don't have time to stick around? Bring coffee, snacks, and hand/foot warmers. It gets cold standing outside!

If you can't go to a picket line, share support and calls for the Province and AHS to halt the planned layoffs and privatization initiatives on social media.

Click here if you have questions! We're happy to connect folks with information and resources.

See you on the picket line!
CJE

A sense of urgency

On Thanksgiving Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is made up of a group of the world's top climate scientists, released their 6th report since 1974. It's scary, but hopeful.

And today, one year to the day before our next federal election, I finally sat down with a green highlighter pen to read a 34-page summary of it, which I then packaged up and took to the office of my member of parliament. I added a letter requesting that she do everything she possibly can to encourage the alignment of Canada's climate policies with what the scientists tell us we must do before 2030 in order to avoid more climate and human catastrophes. The document I dropped off had a lot of green text. I was just going to highlight the important parts, but it's all important!

The report came out on October 6th (click here to read it for yourself), but was shuffled to the bottom of the news cycle by most media outlets, something that makes no sense to me. We're talking about our future here, and hundreds of scientists from all over the world are in agreement, telling us that we need to make changes now or

• we will see a lot more intense climate and weather extremes, and an increase in droughts, floods, wildfires and weather events that will make travel to our favourite places less possible (the Skyline Trail in Jasper is no longer recommended for hikers because of fire danger, a friend's trip to Mexico has been cancelled because of Hurricane Willa, many friends' summer vacations were spoiled by smoke that stretched from the coast to Ontario this summer... see the pattern?)
• we will lose many more ecosystems (our coral reefs and marine ice are disappearing already)
• more species loss and extinction will result in further loss of biodiversity, which has already impoverished our planet and us as a species in many ways
• climate zones will continue to change, bringing desert regions to higher latitudes
• oceans will continue to acidify, currents will continue to change, and invasive species will get around more than they already have (if you think zebra mussels in the Great Lakes are bad enough, just wait...)
• there will be more risks to human health, livelihoods, food security, water supplies, human security and economy
• disadvantaged, vulnerable and often indigenous populations, especially those in the tropics and southern hemisphere, will suffer the most
• urban heat islands, already in the news this summer where people were dying from extreme temperatures in large cities, will only increase as temperatures climb
• food production in extreme weather will be more difficult, and water stress is already a concern in many countries

There are things we can do, and that's why this report is so important. It reminds us that it is possible to reduce CO2 emissions by lowering energy use, increasing energy efficiency, and working to implement the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals because action on them can create synergies between countries in the areas of health, clean energy, responsible consumption and production, the health of our oceans -- and get cities and communities working together for the benefit of all.

None of this will be easy, because governments like to talk more than act. So we have to push...

All of it will require a willingness to make sacrifices and change our ways. It might start with accepting that we need to tighten our belts and pay a carbon tax to kick start an economy that relies less on fossil fuels. That we might have to drive less and walk or carpool more get by with fewer pipelines and more solar and wind energy. That we give up on those tropical vacations altogether for the sake of our grand kids' futures. And eat less meat. And waste less of the earth's resources, using what we already have until it wears out. And remember that we are not entitled to waste things, but that we are to share them, especially with those in the developing world...

Whatever we do, we only have until 2030 to do it. Less than 12 years. So let's start now.

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #43... Talkin' 'bout ecological conversion

Not sure why I'm droppin' consonants and vowels in the title of this week's moodling, except maybe that I've been listenin' to Tracy Chapman's Talkin' 'bout a Revolution. Actually, the two are kinda connected, now that I think about it -- conversion and revolution are both about making change -- one internally, and the other, externally.  This week, we're looking at both kinds of changes -- in us, and in our world.

Here's the link to access Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home -- scroll down to paragraphs 216-221 to have a look at this week's chunk of Pope Francis' encyclical, which was given to the world one year ago today. Has it made a difference? I really believe it has helped the cause of our planet even though you don't hear the words Laudato Si dropped very often -- but the media seems to be taking a greater interest in news stories related to the environment, more than pre-Laudato Si. I've listened in on more conversations about environmental issues, and I'm hoping that Pope Francis' work is waking everyone up to the changes we need to make. What do you think? I guess sometimes it helps to have a global figure come down on the side of creation -- I just wish it had happened several papacies ago.

But I'll give Pope Francis full credit for finally taking environmental issues in hand through his letter to the world, and through offering his "suggestions for an ecological spirituality" in paragraph 216 of this section on Ecological Conversion. He reminds us that "the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body of nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us." I know that for too many centuries, churches have focused almost entirely on the eternal salvation of the people in the pews, forgetting that salvation is supposed bring everyone and everything God made into the fullness of God's love. Praying with and for the people in the pews doesn't go far enough -- action is required to help creation toward abundant life, too!

Pope Francis and his encyclical writing team start paragraph 217 by noting something Pope Benedict called attention to in one of his homilies: the external destruction of our environments is increasing in proportion to our own spiritual emptiness, which we try to fill with possessions, I would say, or experiences -- that can't satisfy us spiritually. Jesus talked about this in one of my favourite passages of Matthew's gospel -- chapter 6, verses 25-33. Consider the lilies, he says. Seek first God's reign, he says. And with our hearts focused less on our possessions and more on what is really most important and valuable in our lives (our relationships with one another and creation), we don't have to rely on materialism and waste the earth's resources to fill up our souls with God's goodness. Pope Francis knows this when he says

the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion... whereby the effects of [our] encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in [our] relationship with the world around [us]. Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.

In paragraph 218, we revisit the example of St Francis. He was born into a life of wealth and luxury, but his experiences as a prisoner of war and his illness following gave him a lot of time to reflect on his playboy lifestyle and the people living in poverty all around him. He woke up to the emptiness that his status and possessions couldn't alleviate, and his personal conversion brought him into harmony with God and creation. I think sometimes we forget that God can change our hearts, too, and bring us to that same harmony.

Coral reef bleaching -- image from World Wildlife Fund

Personal conversion is necessary -- and so is the conversion of all the systems that create pollution, violence and injustice. In paragraph 219 we find that "Social problems must be addressed by community networks and not simply by the sum of individual good deeds." Our solitary actions can change the world a little, but communal, world conversion is what will really make a difference. United, we succeed in a hurry; divided, it takes a lot longer... and we are running short of time. Yesterday I read a story about how 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is experiencing coral bleaching because of warming oceans. The corals can rejuvenate, but not if our oceans keep warming.

Our ecological conversion requires "gratitude and gratuitousness, a recognition that the world is God's loving gift and that we are called to quietly imitate [God's] generosity in self-sacrifice and good
works," says paragraph 220. I can't imagine that there's an environmentalist to be found who isn't in awe of nature and the way it works. Gratitude to our Creator springs from that kind of awe, and what follows is an awareness that we have received our world from a Benevolence that asks nothing in return. We are called to be just as generous to all living beings with whom we share our planet.

We must also hold onto the convictions of our faith, including "the awareness that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us, and the security that Christ has taken unto himself this material world and now, risen, is intimately present to each being, surrounding it with his affection and penetrating it with his light." If our faith helps us to see creation in this way, we also see that "God created the world, writing into it an order and a dynamism that human beings have no right to ignore"(paragraph 221).

Yet humanity has unfortunately ignored so much of creation -- at our own peril -- and it's not always easy to get the attention of those people who haven't yet awakened to creation's intricacies, and teach them the kind of self-sacrifice that it will take to save our planet from further destruction. We have started with ourselves, with reading this encyclical, with working on our own ecological conversion. What comes next?

If we go back to paragraph 219, we see that communal conversion is the next step. We need to move out of our comfort zone and call others to join us in our respect for and protection of God's creation. Perhaps we can share our knowledge when it comes to a particular environmental concern. Maybe we can show someone something about nature's intricacy that inspires awe in us. Perhaps we could get involved with an environmental organization that is working to save bees, butterflies, bears, belugas, or any other creatures we care about.

There are so many possibilities. Wikipedia has a page of environmental organizations listed by country and title. There are over 20 just in Canada, and many of them offer free resources to help us become more aware of the issues our planet is facing, information that can be shared with those who are less aware of our sister, Mother Earth and her struggles to support us all. I'm hoping you already have your own favourite ecological causes.

So this week's challenge is to talk up some of the possibilities for environmental education and activism with the people around us. If we can start with one conversation that helps raise a friend's awareness of an environmental issue, it can be like a stone in a pond that ripples out to touch others. And that's where communal conversion -- or environmental revolution -- can begin.

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Next up: Simplicity and prayer

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #15... Changing ourselves and our world

I've been moodling (musing and doodling) a fair bit this week about whether Pope Francis' encyclical is really going to help change the world. I've come to the conclusion that it can't -- unless we remember that we are a big part of God's action in the world, and that if we want the world to change, we have to change ourselves, too.

from: www.desktopwallpapers4.me

This week's piece of Laudato Si, is about The Mystery of the Universe (paragraphs 76-80, which can be accessed by clicking here). I'm thinking that there are too many mysteries to count when it comes to the universe and God's care for one particular planet and its inhabitants.

Paragraph 76 notes that "Nature is usually seen as a system which can be studied, understood and controlled, whereas creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together into universal communion." I'd never really thought about that before, but it's true that biologists like to talk about nature, while believers talk about creation.

In paragraph 77, the Pope and his writing team assert that the creation of the universe wasn't a random occurrence or "arbitrary omnipotence," but rather, was the result of God's choice to create out of love, and that everything created exists because of that love. For me, it's impossible to imagine that everything surrounding us in creation is the result of  randomness. It makes more sense that something, Someone, namely our Tender God, enfolds everything with love and holds it in balance so that it continues to exist. And it's becoming rather obvious that humans' upsetting of the balance is the reason that things are starting to fall apart.

Ancient pagan religions saw nature as divine, and I can't help but wonder if that wasn't closer to God's intent than the Judaeo-Christian thought that "demythologized nature" according to paragraph 78. Demythologizing nature might have been fine if human beings had taken responsibility for valuing and protecting it the way God does, but it seems our connection to both God and nature have never been quite strong enough to hold everything in balance the way God does. We are only human, and we have periods of doubting God -- or forgetting that we are not God! More recently, the influence of "the modern myth of unlimited material progress" has led too many of us to Mammon (greed) rather than toward the wise direction, development and limitation of our powers as intelligent creatures created by God.

In paragraph 79 we find that "In this universe... we can discern countless forms of relationship and participation....We are free to apply our intelligence towards things evolving positively, or towards adding new ills, new causes of suffering and real setbacks...." God has given us choice, over and over again. Unfortunately, human beings aren't exactly reliable when it comes to choosing life, and so the Church's work, particularly in this letter to the world, is to remind everyone of our duty to care for nature and protect humanity from self-destruction.

Thanks be to God that He and She is reliable. Paragraph 80 reminds us that God can bring good out of the problems human beings have caused. I love the line from Pope John Paul II's Catechesis: "The Holy Spirit can be said to possess an infinite creativity... which knows how to loosen the knots of human affairs, including the most complex and inscrutable." Actually, I'd invite you to read paragraph 80 in particular for yourself (Laudato Si is worth reading), but without letting moments of positivity lull us into a sense that God is going to fix everything without us lifting even a finger. Unfortunately, there are people on this earth who think that way, and they are part of the problem!

The Holy Spirit's infinite creativity resides in each one of us, and as Saint Teresa of Avila liked to say, we are all the hands and feet and heart of Christ. So now the question is, what are we going to do as part of God's action on this planet? How can we put the Spirit's creativity to work in ourselves, for our world?

There has been a lot of talk lately about creating strategies for dealing with climate change in the lead up to the Paris Climate talks (COP 21) from November 30th to December 11th -- less than a month from now. There is hope that this time, a real plan for significantly reducing global carbon emissions will emerge. With increasingly severe climate disasters all over the world, there is a rising urgency for humans to change our ways, and what is clear is that if we don't figure things out soon, our inaction will determine a pretty miserable future for life on the planet. Syria is giving us a taste of how bad a refugee crisis can be. There will be many times more refugees if our climate issues are not addressed, and soon.

But we can't just expect world leaders to make changes -- we need to change our own lifestyles too. That means giving ourselves an energy audit. If we really want to prevent further climate change, we all need to become more aware of the places in our lives where we are creating needless carbon emissions, and reduce the size of our carbon footprint. Change begins with us.

For example -- how much heat are we using in our homes? At my house, we've gotten used to a certain level of comfort, and we've forgotten that the basement of our home isn't often in full use -- so this weekend we are closing off heating ducts to those empty spaces that don't always need to be warm.

75 years ago, hot water was pretty much considered a luxury, but now it's an expectation that creates a fair bit of waste if we really think about it. My parents talk about the "weekly bath" that was shared in their families. Our present culture likes our daily hot showers -- but maybe we could look at their length and frequency and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases created by our hot water tanks, remembering that there are places in the world where water is so scarce that a hot shower can't even be imagined. Could we get away with showering every second or third day to live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who don't have the option of a daily shower? And could we shower for less than 5 minutes if it would slow climate change so that our children and grandchildren can worry less about forest fires, floods, droughts and severe weather?

Are we willing to give up idling our cars? Using automatic car starters? Are we willing to use public transportation if the option exists? Are we willing to buy local food instead of exotic items that have to be trucked halfway across the globe? Where else can we cut our energy use?

What are we willing to do? And what would you like to ask our world leaders to do?

If you live here in Canada, there's a wonderful opportunity to let our new Prime Minister know the answer to both questions above. If you click here, the link will take you to a webpage where you can sign a card checking off some steps you are willing to take to reduce your carbon footprint, and you can also ask Prime Minister Trudeau to commit to:

1. Adopting a fair, ambitious and legally-binding international agreement on climate change to ensure that the world's temperature rise does not exceed 2 degrees centigrade.
2. Providing the resources necessary for the most vulnerable communities in the world to adapt to climate change.
3. Transitioning Canada's fossil fuel dependent economy toward one that is based on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

If you don't live in Canada, I'm betting there are other ways to let your country's leaders know about the change you would like to be, and to see. We all need to do our part to help God keep the balance necessary for creation, and if we can get our leaders on board when it comes to changing ourselves and our world, all the better.

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Next up: #16... God's love letter

Simple Suggestion #239... Get to know an immigrant or refugee

The Syrian refugee crisis finally hit home this week for some of us. The picture of a little child washed up on a beach woke many people up. The outrage and tears over the photo are all over the internet and TV. But have our hearts really changed?

The world has always known immigrants and refugees. Because of war, disaster and climate change, it always will. But until we know these people as our brothers and sisters, until we recognize that their children are our children, until we understand that we are all one and that what affects one affects all, pictures will come and go, outrage and tears will wax and wane. We have to make their troubles personal. But how?

My Burundian sister, Alice, opened my eyes to the horrors of the genocide more than any book or movie ever could. Her story of fleeing with her 8-month-old son from killers who spilled into Burundi from Rwanda opened my eyes to the suffering of refugees. I am often afraid to ask for updates from my Syrian sisters, Rima and Maria, because I know that some of their family members are still in danger. But fear is no excuse -- it's more important to offer a hand in friendship, and to find out if there is anything I can do to help them in their efforts to bring their families and friends to Canada. Today I wrote a letter to my Prime Minister, Member of Parliament, and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration asking for an opening of Canada's borders to allow more refugees now, before the October election (!), and for the cutting of red tape preventing groups ready to support our brothers and sisters who are looking for lives far from war and persecution. There are many church groups and individuals just waiting to help, and they need us now.

But today's actual challenge is to notice those around us who have come from other places, to open our hearts to their stories, and to abandon our fears about reaching out to help in whatever ways we can. If you want to join me in writing a letter or three, that would be good, too. We need to remember that we must all sing with one voice if we are to survive this world's crises.

Simple Suggestion #217... Support

or other charitable organizations that help small-scale farmers
If you crunch the numbers, women like the one above (and men) feed 3 billion people world wide, mostly in the global South. (Women do most of the planting, weeding and selling of the crops in the South's rural areas, but their efforts toward producing so much food is often overlooked.) Most of the food on our planet exists in its present form because of thousands of years of innovations and plant breeding that occurred on small family-run farms. Small landholders selected seeds from their best, most successful plants year after year to replant the following year, and over time, their practices created and bred plant varieties that worked in many different climates, and were affordable and nutritionally superior to the originals.

Unfortunately one of the biggest threats to small farmers is the fact that large corporations are doing their best to privatize and patent seeds. Companies like Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer and BASF are genetically modifying seeds so that they produce bumper crops the first year (with the help of company-made agrochemicals), but cannot be replanted the next year because their genes are modified so that their offspring don't produce. Growers are then forced to buy more of the corporations' genetically modified single-year seeds and chemicals. In these cases, biodiversity is vanishing, and in some countries, fair trade agreements have made seed saving an illegal act. And the blanket distribution of one type of genetically modified seed for one type of climate can't be successful in every microclimate across every country!

Farmers in countries like Haiti, Brazil, Columbia and Zambia have realized these dangers and have been fighting for their seed saving rights through nationwide farmers strikes, setting up their own ecological seed production cooperatives, and refusing to allow corporations entry into their work. But the pressure continues, and, unlike most human beings, corporations are more interested in their fiscal bottom lines than the world's common good. The companies named above lack any sort of conscience and have more than enough money to fight dirty.

But we can help our farming brothers and sisters in their struggles against heartless agri-business here and around the world by buying local and organic products when possible. When it comes to items we import, fair trade and organic products are generally produced by people who subscribe to non GM, organic seed choices and farming practices. If enough consumers demand non-genetically modified choices at our grocery stores, and ask our legislators to enact laws to label GMO foods so that we can avoid the products sold in Canada containing genetically modified corn, canola, soy and sugar beet, it won't be long before agribusiness is forced to rethink its ways. By eating locally and sustainably, we can have a global impact before it's too late.

Click here for more information about the Sow Much Love campaign, and support farmers and their right to save seeds whenever the opportunity arises!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfL3AeT0q2s

P.S.  Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Today's the day to Speak Out!

Today in my country, many environmental and other organizations such as the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Pembina Institute are acting as one in calling on our government leaders to rethink Bill C-38, a budget bill which will weaken many of our country's most important environmental protection measures and silence Canadians who seek to defend our beautiful natural heritage from over-development. So it's time to get involved. For the past week, my inbox has received a few reminders from the David Suzuki Foundation about doing my part to act for our environment by signing a petition and contacting government officials.

If you're reading this in Canada and this is the first you've heard of BlackOutSpeakOut, you can find a short list of their list of concerns here. You'll find the homepage here. If you love nature and democracy, now's your chance to prove it by getting involved. If you're not the type to endorse the political activities of environmental activist groups, why not at least write a letter to your government official and let them know that you love nature and want to see it protected? Even if you're not Canadian... our world leaders need to be reminded more often that we all depend on our environment for life!

Simple Suggestion #109... Speak your mind

Today, I'm doing a little happy dance. Why?

Over the past six months, I've written numerous letters to our School Board, Superintendant, and City Councillors about the need to keep our girls' school open. They wanted to close it and build a new school in a distant suburb for a lot of reasons that just didn't make sense.

For a lot of the last six months, I felt like I was hitting my head against school brick, but I just kept reiterating the facts in my letters... that our school is a valuable place because it is the only Kindergarten to Grade 12 single-track Catholic French Immersion school this side of Winnipeg, it is centrally located, close to the French community in Edmonton, well established, easy to reach by transit... and the list went on. I had interesting discussions with a couple of City Councillors via email, and I supported a more organized parent group even though I wasn't able to attend their meetings.

Last night, it all paid off. With 50 parents in attendance at the meeting, our school trustees voted unanimously to keep the old school open, with a view to some serious renovations. When I saw the headline, I whooped out loud, and my family came running! My youngest daughter just came up to me this morning and said, "I'm so glad our school is staying open. I don't care if I have to wear my coat in my class because it's cold sometimes. I get to graduate from my school!" And complete her French education!

I am thrilled for her, and for all the parents who, like me, did more than complain about the changes the Catholic School Board had planned for French Immersion. It's really easy to complain... what's more challenging is to complain to the right people. Human beings love to speak our minds and give our opinions to each other when we encounter things that seem unjust or poorly thought out, but speaking to the people with the power to make a difference isn't something that we think to do often enough. It's too easy to think that no one is listening... but clearly, our elected officials need to be in touch with their constituents!

So... your mission for today, if you choose to accept it, is to think about where your voice needs to be heard. If none of the parents at our school had bothered to organize and write letters and attend meetings, you can bet the vote would have gone the other way last night. Where can you speak your mind for something important today?

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.

I'm a radical. How about you?

The Honourable Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, called me a radical on Monday in an open letter he had printed in the Toronto Globe and Mail. If you missed it, you can find it here. Here's the part where he refers to folks like me who oppose the building of the Gateway Pipeline to carry Oilsands bitumen through the forests of British Columbia to a port located on a pristine coast where our First Nations brothers and sisters fish for their food:

Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. 

No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams. 

These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

Minister Oliver, I'm very disappointed in you. As the Minister of Natural Resources, you, of all people, should be able to see the forest for the trees. I would think you would know that ordinary Canadians are concerned with more than just the building of a pipeline for the sake of Canada's wealth. I would think you would know that the word radical can also refer to roots, as in grassroots... and that there are a lot of ordinary, grassroots Canadians who can see that calling people names and accusing them of ulterior motives is just another reason for them to protest against the unsustainable choices your government is making.
 
Minister Oliver, you're letting me down. Honestly, I could care less about the name calling, but I expect you to think about ALL our natural resources, not just the ones that stimulate our economy. I would hope you would give first consideration to the environment on which we all depend for clean air, water, food and housing. I would like you to ensure that the appropriate development of the Oilsands (including dealing with increasing carbon emissions and those nasty tailings ponds) take place before any further thought be given to building pipelines. I would appreciate knowing that if Canadians allow the Oilsands to continue to develop, we won't be paying for them with the very atmosphere our children and grandchildren will inherit. 

Minister Oliver, I am not against forestry, or mining, or oil, or gas, or hydroelectric dams. I rely on all those things (except the dams -- we buy windpower) to live in a chilly northern Canadian city. What I am against is the exploitation of those resources by politicians and businessmen who are more concerned with an unsustainable economy's bottom line than with the environment that we all depend upon in order to live. I don't want to live in a world whose climate change becomes a constant threat to our very existence. I don't want my First Nations brothers and sisters' fishing grounds to become any more polluted than they already are, or to be endangered by the possibility of oil spills. I don't want forestry to decimate old growth rain forests that help to balance ecosystems that are tied to other ecosystems in ways that we will only discover when those ecosystems are dying. I don't want mining to lead to the erosion or pollution of important watersheds. If I have to use less oil, gas or electricity, I will find ways to adapt, because I am willing to make personal sacrifices for a healthier future. 

In other words, I just want the planet Earth and all its life forms to continue, whole and well, for many generations. I'm not convinced that you or your government cronies really understand how a pipeline will change things for the worse. So for the sake of your children and grandchildren, I write my own open letter to you. 


If my attitude makes me a radical, I wear the t-shirt proudly. And I'll mail my commentary/rant to you, and invite all the other radicals I know to write you their own letters

Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, can be reached at Joe.Oliver@parl.gc.ca. Even better, send a snail mail (no stamp required): 

Hon. Joe Oliver, House of Commons

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0A6

(t-shirt picture from Surropa.com).

We know we're in trouble when...

... our government leaders have their heads so far in the sand that they tell 14-billion-dollar lies at the Durban Climate Change Conference. When they blame China, India and Brazil for not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (when China has actually done more per capita than Canada!) And when they take their marbles and go home before positive things have a chance to happen. Talk about childish!

I'm not saying that the Kyoto Protocol was the be all and end all of Global Climate Change action. Its flaws are many, and touted well enough by the press. But it was a place to start. And if the Canadian government under the Conservatives had stuck to the original agreement put in place by the former government, Canada would be within 20% of achieving its original goals in cutting carbon emissions. Instead, our country has gone backwards, and Peter Kent has pulled Canada out of the agreement entirely, without the approval of the Canadian public. No wonder Canada has Colossal Fossil status in the world when it comes to environmental sensitivity!

What Kent and Prime Minister Harper seem to be ignoring is that we have to begin somewhere to turn things around. So the Kyoto conversation didn't take a direction of which they approved. That doesn't give them the right to walk away. We need climate action now. We're already well past the 350 parts per million of greenhouse gases that are considered borderline "safe" for our atmosphere. Putting the economy's woes above our environment's degradation might win Peter Kent a few political points in the minds of his Big Oil supporters for the moment, but it's not going to prevent microburst storms from knocking the glass out of Calgary's skyscrapers, or end the drought in the Horn of Africa. If we don't do something now, we have less than a 66% chance of keeping climate issues to a dull roar... and how many of us would get on a plane if we had less than 2/3 of a chance of landing? (That brilliant point was made on a radio commentary I heard this morning.)

I've already written to Peter Kent and Prime Minister Harper about the importance of participating fully in the climate talks in Durban. I told them that they need to do something for the sake of their children, grandchildren, and future generations. Of course, they didn't want to hear me, so now I'll just have to write them again.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who objects to their refusal to talk about climate change in a constructive fashion. So, my friends... wherever you are, please, today, write a respectful letter to your elected officials. Tell them that Global Climate Change is real, it's our planet's most pressing issue (we'll get through economic meltdowns somehow, but not planetary ones!) and it's time to do something about it. Time to find alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Time to build sustainable economies using alternate energies (entire towns in Germany are already off the grid!) Time to wake up! And do what's necessary, even if it means we have to make some sacrifices.

Here's Prime Minister Harper's email address: pm@pm.gc.ca

Here's Peter Kent's email address: kentp@parl.gc.ca

Here's where you can find an email address for your elected Member of Parliament: http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

If you're from outside of Canada, I'm sorry I can't guess at who your elected officials might be, but please, google them and send them a note. We really don't want more climate trouble than we already have. And we know we'll have even more trouble if we throw up our hands in dismay and do nothing! Maybe, if enough people speak truth to power, things will get done in time. We live in hope, right?

***

December 16, 2011

Here's my letter to Prime Minister Harper. Feel free to use it if you need some sort of template for your own letter.

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am saddened, disappointed, and ashamed of the fact that you allowed Peter Kent to pull Canada out of participation in the Climate Change Conference in Durban without having the decency to come up with and present concerned Canadians with a serious plan to reduce the effects of global climate change. Future generations deserve better from your government! Your kids deserve better!

I expect to see some serious initiatives to reduce Canada's dependency upon carbon based fuels and technologies, and to make wise transitions to a more sustainable future. Our economy must move away from the Oil Sands and toward sustainable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal. We need to work with other countries to protect our planet from further climate catastrophes, and walking away from opportunities to reduce our share of carbon emissions will not prevent Calgary skyscrapers from being buffeted by microburst storms, or stop the flooding of Manitoba, or ease the need for monies sent by Canadians to help with drought and famine in the Horn of Africa. What will it take for you and the rest of our government to wake up to the environmental crisis that we still have time to avert? A tornado in the House of Commons?

I am ready to make sacrifices if I have to. Are you?

What is your plan to reduce Canada's emissions and encourage other international leaders to do the same? Canada should be taking a leadership role here, rather than lagging behind everyone else as a colossal fossil. As our Prime Minister, you have the opportunity to come up with a really good plan. Please use it.


A different sort of Sunday song

I haven't commented on the Occupy Movement to this point, and it's long past time to say something. I just watched a powerful little music video sent to me by my friend, Mark, who sends me a lot of good things. My daughter asked what the song was about, and when I told her it was about how power and wealth have ended up in the pockets of a small, wealthy group of people, she said, "but there's nothing we can do about it, right?"

The point is that we've been saying that forever. "There's nothing I can do about it." And a long while ago, Edmund Burke said something like, "the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is that good people do nothing." So now, finally, people are trying to do something. They're gathering. They're talking. They're trying to come up with solutions, like Robin Hood taxes. The many are letting the few know that things must change for the sake of ALL. But unfortunately, tonight, here in Edmonton, the occupiers will be evicted from their peaceful camp, where they were willing to tough it out through winter cold to keep the discussion going. I would like to go down there and be with them as the police come to lead them away at eleven p.m. Especially after hearing this song.

My occupying brothers and sisters, whatever happens, keep the discussion going. You are on the right track, and our world needs more people to participate in the changes that can occur through dialogue. What I don't understand is why so few of the few have waded into this discussion when the world can only gain from finding wise solutions to inequality, solutions where people, and our planet's health, not wealth, are the bottom line. As the song says, we the many have nothing to lose, so I would think the few might like to negotiate... and to have everyone realize that to have two camps, the many and the few, still divides us. We need to come together for once and for all to end the division of humanity into "us" and "them," to remember that there's only ever been us, one human family, all of whom deserve respect, rights, freedoms, food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and justice in all its forms.