Cartoon By Wendy Brown
This Defining Moment
We have a very limited time left to make enough of a difference to radically reduce each of our footprints enough to slow the impacts of global climate catastrophe.
We are all like the frog in the pot of water with the temperature gradually being turned up to the boiling point where we don't realize we are boiling to death until it is too late. At this moment in time on our beloved planet, it is already too late to reverse the impacts of global overheating and climate chaos. We are already in a full blown climate emergency and we are witnesses to the staggering effects of planetary collapse with devastating storms; massive flooding and landslides impacting communities, slowing the transportation of goods and impacting water quality; heat domes and heat waves making daily life unbearable for vulnerable people; runaway wildfires wiping out entire communities and impacting the air we breathe around the planet; storm surges smashing everything in their wake; droughts killing off massive tracts of land meant to grow food crops and livestock; massive species extinction; irreversible biodiversity loss and the rapidly increasing acidification of our oceans which will eventually make it impossible to sustain marine habitats and the life required to keep this giant ecosystem alive. All of these things are killing off higher and higher numbers of humans and yet, too many of us humans are carrying on with our heads buried in the sand worried about our golf game tomorrow or wondering which show to watch on Netflix to numb the creeping fear and terror we feel every day as our existence gets weirder and scarier.
The global COVID-19 pandemic was horrible, it was very difficult on most people around the world and we are still not out of the woods on the ramifications of that. There is no easy way to say this, but life is not going back to the way it was in "the good ol days" ever. We have to look to the future as an ever-evolving series of obstacles that we can only do our best to confront with integrity, hope, courage and optimism and try to find the opportunities where they exist, think outside the box and be innovative in our approach to making life more livable, sustainable and comfortable for all of our people, not just those with privilege and making sure that no one is left behind. It takes all kinds of people to build a community so let's greet each other with kindness, respect and create the kind of place we all want to live in.
Reconciliation & Relationships
We have so much to learn from our Indigenous partners on how to be better stewards of this land that they have lived sustainably on for many thousands of years. I often reflect on whether the world would be facing extreme planetary heating and collapse if colonization had not happened in the way in which it did and had humans not been so greedy and focused on resource extraction and capitalism as the main drivers of life on this planet. I think we have failed mother earth and no one likes to admit being a failure so it is hard for any of us to face that we could be responsible for the disruption of the life of entitlement and privilege some of us have known and expected to always carry on with. I did not have children deliberately because I could see a long time ago where the world was headed and saw that exponential growth of more humans to feed and clothe was not the answer. But now to imagine the sacrifices that the future generations are going to have to make and the disasters they are going to suffer, is heartbreaking and inevitable. I don't sound like an optimist here but I still think we can take our current situation and turn it into opportunities by building better relationships with our Indigenous neighbours, by being open to learning the truth of our shared history, feeling the shame that we all feel deep down knowing what atrocities have happened to Indigenous people across this land at the hands of the colonizers and continue to happen, and admit that we didn't do enough sooner to make it stop. By acknowledging the truth is the only way we can move forward towards reconciliation and only then can we really begin to learn from each other and work as true partners and stewards of this land. I think that is the only way we will meet our climate action targets as well, is together.