What Will It Take for Governments to Act?

The biggest brown coal power plant of the world.

by Paul Strome Most people who live in a ‘free country’ like Canada believe they have the right to a healthy environment. We feel we are entitled to all that is imbedded in that philosophy – clean water, fresh air, healthy food, etc. Those of us who live in a rural setting (18% as of… Continue reading What Will It Take for Governments to Act?

A tale of a trillion trees

by Stan Hirst A fine alliterative title, but it presents a problem in visioning. Just what does a trillion trees actually look like? What size area would, or could they cover? The story starts with Kenyan Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) who, while serving in the National Council of Women in 1976, introduced the idea of community-based… Continue reading A tale of a trillion trees

How do we galvanize climate action in Vancouver?

Creating a renewed sense of place, block by block by Erlene Woollard and Patricia Plackett “Lord, make me pure, but not yet!” No doubt when St. Augustine uttered this prayer in about 380 AD he was not thinking about being pure in the sense of his ‘carbon footprint’. If you will allow us to belabour… Continue reading How do we galvanize climate action in Vancouver?

Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change?

by Fiacha Heneghan ‘We’re doomed’: a common refrain in casual conversation about climate change. It signals an awareness that we cannot, strictly speaking, avert climate change. It is already here. All we can hope for is to minimise climate change by keeping global average temperature changes to less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in order… Continue reading Is there a limit to optimism when it comes to climate change?

Climate Compassion for Australian friends

by Diana Ellis I spent some time this morning thinking about what I, as a concerned world citizen, am learning from this year’s Australian bushfires. There are three sets of people I know who live there – in Sydney, Melbourne, and in a small town further south on the east coast. Up to about a… Continue reading Climate Compassion for Australian friends

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer Hamish Hamilton | 2019 | 272 pages This is one of those books which deals with a divisive subject (climate change) and then creates yet more  discord amongst readers because of the author’s style and message.  Jonathan Safran Foer delves into… Continue reading We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

We are heading for a New Cretaceous, not for a new normal

by Peter Forbes A lazy buzz phrase – ‘Is this the new normal?’ – has been doing the rounds as extreme climate events have been piling up over the past year. To which the riposte should be: it’s worse than that – we’re on the road to even more frequent, more extreme events than we… Continue reading We are heading for a New Cretaceous, not for a new normal

Climate change and immigration: the unspoken political connection

by Stan Hirst The 2019 Canadian federal election is in full swing. The media overflows with headlines, photo ops, emphatic one-liners and the occasional blooper. Politics as usual. Promises, promises. Goodies for everyone, especially the underprivileged, the middle class and for those who voted the wrong way last time around. At a time when global… Continue reading Climate change and immigration: the unspoken political connection