Good Sunday Morning!
Perhaps unexpectedly, I am starting this morning’s letter with memories of that awful September 11th, 25 years ago. My step-son was living in New York, and worse, worked in the office of the New York Department of Justice as an assistant D.A. That building was only a block or so from the World Trade Centre. From his office window he watched in horror as people jumped. The blow by blow of that day is fresh in my mind. Incredibly, my godfather, actor Cliff Robertson, was in a small plane that morning and saw the whole thing unfolding. He phoned my mom in Cape Breton to tell her of his experience. He was flying his Cessna from Long Island into Manhattan. He saw a large black cloud ahead, and thought it must be an unexpected thunderstorm. Then he looked down just in time to see the second plane fly into the second tower. He immediately thought “we are under attack.” And almost as soon as he thought it, he was contacted by the FAA. He was ordered to follow a new flight path and land in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Once on the ground, he was there for two weeks.
Years later, I heard directly from the decision-maker who had told the FAA to get all the aircraft in the skies over North America on the ground immediately. The Navy Captain who made that call is a friend from Sidney by-the-Sea Rotary, Mike Jellinek. As is normal in the shared North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), leadership is shared between US and Canadian armed forces. It was a Canadian in control that morning. I had asked Mike if they had considered shooting down the hijacked planes? He explained that whatever they might have considered, the first problem was the hijacked planes were invisible. Once the terrorists took control of the cockpit, they shut off the transponders. Looking at North American radar and the crowded airspace of the eastern seaboard, there were just thousands of dots in the air. The only way to sort out the clogged image was to get the legitimate flights out of the sky immediately. I find it incredible that any bureaucracy, even military or the FAA could move so fast that my Uncle Cliff was re-routed within minutes.
The whole tragedy remains unbearable. Every day around the world, lives are lost in wars, by blockades and cruelty, yes, in horror after horror. But this one day traumatized those directly involved and those watching on television. People say that day “changed everything.” I do not think so. It shattered many things. It gave the US the illegitimate excuse to launch an illegal war on Iraq. But we still live in that fragile world where all that can pull humanity through is the rule of law, international law and a deep commitment to world peace. That commitment remains shaky. But we have to keep trying. As feeble as that sounds, Canada must re-engage for world peace, diplomacy and nuclear disarmament – and do it with renewed vigour.
Next, an apology for an error in last week’s letter. Looking at media coverage, failing to go to original sources (which I always try to do), I had wrongly credited the Canadian Climate Institute with a new climate report.
Actually the Climate Institute was commenting on a much more substantive and significant scientific update from Environment Canada. It is the most impressive work of science I have seen from Environment Canada in years. The full report runs nearly 1500 pages. I recommend this 66 page summary. It makes it clear that as global average temperatures rise, due to humanity’s burning of fossil fuels and removal of forests, Canada, and particularly our North, warm far faster than the rest of the world.
Have a look at the colour image at Figure RS.5. It gives an overview of all of Canada.
Headline statement 4:
“Warming temperatures have driven wide-ranging, interconnected, and sustained changes across Canada. The changes include more extreme heat, less extreme cold, longer growing seasons, longer fire seasons, earlier peak stream flow, shorter snow and ice cover seasons, thinning glaciers, thawing permafrost, warming oceans, and rising sea level. Human-caused warming is the only explanation for the collective changes observed.”
I do worry about the media coverage. It is true what we have done is irreversible, but that does NOT mean it is too late to save ourselves and our grandchildren from the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Only massive efforts to shut down the use of fossil fuels for energy will stop global average temperature from rising, potentially triggering unstoppable and self-accelerating rates of global heating. We must redouble efforts to reduce emissions drastically – all countries and all at once. Simultaneously we must do more to be prepared for what is coming. We must develop community resilience and national capacities to save lives and protect ecosystems.
Instead, Canada is doubling down on fossil fuel expansion.
This week our prime minister is welcoming bankers and investment giants to Toronto for his so-called “Investment Summit.”
Here is how the Clean 50 newsletter presents it:
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- Breaking news: Ottawa pitches 167 projects to some of the world’s biggest investors, from offshore wind and batteries to new oil pipelines and LNG
- What the project list says about the economy Canada wants to build, plus a link to the full investment summit pitch book.”
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To prepare for the summit, the government announced slashing environmental assessments for favoured projects.
We must not be silent – nor allow the false narrative that these projects are “good for the economy.”
We must, at least, demand a public, independent assessment of the business case for each project. A cost-benefit analysis. Right now there is no such case for the new pipeline, nor for destroying the ecosystems of Roberts Bank and Burrard Inlet. If there were a business case, wouldn’t private sector companies be asking to build the projects?? This argument – “show me the money” may prove more powerful to the rest of Canada than “hands off our salmon and our Southern Resident Killer Whales!” Why is the current government willing to spend public dollars so recklessly, increasing debt and deficit for projects the business community will not touch? One way or another, we have to push back.
Thanks for all who said hi at Salt Spring Fall Fair yesterday. This afternoon is Cordova Bay’s meeting. Tomorrow is Pender Islands’ town hall and Tuesday Mayne Island! Check here for the schedule: https://
And hope to see you soon!
Lots of love,
Elizabeth
And P.S.
PLEASE help me get signatures above 10K for the National Gallery to – at long last – hold an exhibit of the works of one of Canada’s greatest artists: the Robert Bateman petition closes Sept 25.