Good Sunday Morning! Wednesday will be the 56th annual Earth Day. I can mark my commitment to environmental activism to that first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. I organized in my high school, and pretty much have not stopped since. I will be talking with CBC’s host of Quirks and Quarks, Bob McDonald, on Wednesday. In preparation, CBC sent me this tape of the Earth Day interview I did with Bob in 1995 for the 25th anniversary of that first Earth Day.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13LyMFkBHzyIcjtEVHR22tcIb1p9rcUA_/view
Listening, I had to fight back tears at how far backwards we have slid. I heard my younger self voice and felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy. When they asked me about hope for the future, my reply: “I have a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter,” That really brought me to the edge of tears. My little girl is now a 34-year old mom, and my determination to keep the planet habitable is grounded in: “I have a one-and-a-half-year-old grand-daughter!” I must stay hopeful. It is a struggle, best taken on one day at a time.
In that I had an enormous boost this week. I had the rare chance to have a longish visit with one of my heroes, an old friend who very rarely travels to British Columbia. Bill McKibben was in Vancouver to do a Ted Talk. John and I met him at his hotel for breakfast. I had just read his wonderful new book Here Comes the Sun. One of the opening lines of the book closely parallels my feelings, reflecting on our work to raise climate awareness. In thinking back to his first best-selling call to action, The End of Nature, Bill wrote “in the decades since… I have chronicled those early warnings as they came true. This moment would seem to be—indeed it is—the summation and the vindication of all that angst,” and then—a pivot, thank heavens, Bill writes “And yet, right now, really for the first time, I can see a path forward. A path lit by the sun.”
Bill expresses guarded optimism. Over breakfast he shared his belief that Trump’s power and political influence is waning. Like me, Bob feels some hope attached to the global meeting, the one I mentioned last week, the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. We are both alarmed by the latest research pointing to the unacceptably high risk of collapse of that great conveyor belt of current in the Atlantic Ocean (AMOC).
We are both very worried about what the death and destruction that may occur in next six months due to global warming-driven extreme weather events.
But we both know it is not too late to avoid the worst. Like me Bill has a grandchild, his first, a two-year-old grandson, Asa. And the path forward is lit by the sun.
The economics favour solar energy, but the commitment of petrostates, like Canada and the Saudis is to extract and use every last molecule of carbon, for greater wealth for the very few. Governments are working against the disruptive impacts of cheap and abundant renewable electricity. But the power of the new technology may be unstoppable. Already China is reducing GHG emissions thanks to the shift to solar and wind. Pakistan has made a huge shift toward solar.
One of my constituents is proving the impact one person can have. Tannis Wightman gave me a copy of Here Comes the Sun and then made an amazing offer: if she bought enough copies of the book and shipped them to Ottawa, could I please give one to every cabinet minister? She suggested I include this message: “I hope you will read “Here Comes the Sun” by Bill McKibben and find it as exciting as I did when I read it. I am an elderly woman in BC who is blatantly ‘lobbying’ you on behalf of every person in Canada!” Initially Tannis wanted her generous activism to be anonymous, but she has given me permission to share this with you. She has also contacted Green MLA Robert Botterell to get the book to every BC Cabinet minister! The power of one!!
We do have power and agency. Whether nine years old or ninety, we can do more!
We make connections coming from places of vast mystery. This week many humans were caught unaware by the overwhelming sense of awe prompted by the images beamed to Earth from the Artemis II mission. It led the hosts of the CBC Interior programme, Radio West, to ask listeners about what provoked awe for them.
John was, as usual, tuned in to CBC, and sent them this note, which they read on air:
“Hi, John Kidder here.
“In July a few years ago I was out weeding my little hopyard on the Bonaparte River just north of Ashcroft. I was wearing my normal summer uniform of a broad straw hat, a big white shirt, shorts, bare feet. It was hot, being July in Ashcroft, but not yet unbearable or dangerous, as it can get these days.
“Studying Buddhism helped me to understand that all living beings are connected, and I am often struck by feelings of kinship here in the desert with my ospreys and eagles, a sort of fellowship even with packrats. When I heard Indigenous elders and leaders close a speech with ‘all our relations’, I assumed they mean human and other animal relations… That day in the hopyard, I got an overwhelming felt sense that all my relations included the rocks and the rivers, the stars and planets, the dirt underneath my feet, the skies and the clouds. I was, in fact, awestruck. Still am.”
Meanwhile as astronauts contemplated our place in the universe and spoke out loud of God, President Trump took aim at Pope Leo. Imagine a follower of Christ having the gall to criticize war! Trump also retaliated with an AI image of him raising someone from the dead. And he defended his sacrilegious post as him as a doctor! The first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mulally quickly joined Pope Leo and asked world leaders to stand for peace.
Could this be the beginning of a new kind of rupture?
I lean into hope.
This week is also the dreadful anniversary of the largest mass killing in Canadian history—the 2020 killings in Portapique, Nova Scotia.
The government boasts it will hire 1,000 more RCMP officers. While the Mass Casualty Commission, established to fully investigate how the killer was allowed to run loose over 13 hours, killing people across a vast area, recommended increasing training for RCMP to a three-year degree programme, the RCMP plans to REDUCE training requirements to fewer months, not years, to bring on more officers faster.
This is my exchange with the Minister of Justice from earlier this week.
I will keep repeating that Globe and Mail editorial:
“Canada’s national police force needs to be torn down to its foundations and then those foundations need to be dynamited.”
I held a press scrum this week, touching on climate science and the threat of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, as well as on the meaning of the new Liberal majority. Here it is.
And here is my attempt in Question Period to understand the cuts to science funding.
In fact, the prime minister has not yet met, even once, with his Chief Science advisor.
Still, we must live in hope.
It is spring and glorious. Embrace those moments of awe. Breathe in gratitude.
Love
Elizabeth