CAUTION: Serendipitous roads may cause new perspectives

It was early March, just before Covid-19 exploded into our collective consciousness. We – my partner and I – decided on a quick weekend getaway to celebrate an anniversary. We live in Kitchener and had wanted to visit the Lake Huron shore. We found a resort just north of Grand Bend and made our plans to escape. And when I say ‘plans’, I do mean so, given that we drive an electric vehicle, and one that happens to be best suited to inter-urban transit.

Don’t get me wrong; I love driving ‘Mr. Bobby Button’, the moniker (and character) attached to the 2017 Mitsubishi MiEV that can be seen tooting around KW in all seasons. BB is about the size of a Smartcar-on-steroids, has all-wheel drive and can turn in a phone booth, and is remarkably spunky when the light goes green. This generation of EV, however, was built just-before the innovations embedded in today’s EVs that practically eliminate ‘range anxiety’. BB has an ‘effective’ full range of 150 kilometres on a full charge but temperature, ancillary electrical use (radio, phone charger, heater, etc.) and travelling speed can combine to reduce the 150 km range by a third or more. That’s not much of a problem when you are doing errands or running across town and back; you plug in at home and are fully good-to-go by the morning. But when you’ve got an extended journey ahead of you in an EV of BB’s vintage, you need to put a bit of extra planning in place to ensure that you arrive at your destination without the necessity of pushing the last kilometre or two!

And, truth be told, I’m a bit of a nervous-Nelly when it comes to range anxiety. When driving gas vehicles, the EMPTY light was a frequent travelling companion and a reminder to stop….soon-ish. In BB? Not so much. There have been a couple of ‘adventures’ that came close to running down the battery and getting the travelling party stuck in the middle of a farmer’s field. Oh, and there’s that other time that saw yours-truly come close to committing B&E to access an electrical outlet in a barn by the side of a country road somewhere west of Belleville.

With that in mind, the route was carefully planned, thanks to the ‘Queen of Google Maps and the EV Charging Apps’. Oh yes, there’s an app for charging your EV (recommended), or for scouting out potential stopping points (also recommend, and be sure to check the latest check-in). Actually, there’s three or four apps that you need in this part of SW Ontario. In Quebec and eastern Ontario, one app gets you from Montreal to Kingston….but then you’ll encounter a patchwork of stopping points, some demonstration projects brought forth by municipalities and some for-profit, app-based solutions. In southwest Ontario, there’s pretty good coverage in the cities like Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Stratford, Guelph and Brantford. For our trip to Lake Huron, we’d first need to stop and top-up in Stratford. And then find another place to stop before getting to the shore, as the top-up only takes BB to 80% charge and the temperature was cool to the point of chilly (and passengers likewise).

We made the first leg to Stratford without incident, although that luck wouldn’t be repeated on the homeward journey as the erstwhile-working charging suddenly wasn’t working on Sunday! But that’s a story for another day.

The battery in BB read 40% when we plugged in to the fast-charger, ChaDeMo (google it….I can’t remember what that stands for at the moment). It takes about 20 minutes to get to 80% from empty, although I’ve never risked that; in this case, the charge took about 15 minutes, which afforded us the perfect opportunity to advance scout the next stopping point.

As I mentioned, the Queen had a full array of apps to check and then cross-check with Google maps to plot time, distance and likelihood that I’d have a mini-meltdown before we reached the charging point. At this stage, I was focussed not so much on the bucolic nature of the quaint town housing the charging station – and much more focussed on not running out of ‘juice’ somewhere between Varna and Staffa….which last time I check an atlas were both located near the Black Sea? How could that be?

I should mention that in addition to the high-powered, separately-powered ChaDeMo fast-charger (15-20 minutes), there’s a mid-range charger (that runs on 220) that takes 4 hours to reach full charge from empty…and a plug-in, take-with version that can take up to 12 hours to get you to full charge from empty. Oh, and because we don’t drive a Tesla, Elon’s e-stations do absolutely nothing for us ‘plebs’. So figuring out which station was working in which location, and with which app to pay for the privilege of powering our progress, is kind of important.

The Queen remarked that there seemed to be a new station, just up and running in the town of Exeter, which was conveniently located on our route to the shore from Stratford. With an almost-full charge under our engine’s fanless belt, we headed out with a load of enthusiasm and just a tad of concern about what would await us at the destination. We checked out the Google maps, saw that Exeter is located about 20 kilometres from the Lake Huron shore near Grand Bend, with an extra dozen clicks taking you up the shore to Bayfield. Exeter is also the largest and best-appointed town once you’ve left Stratford if you’re heading in the Grand Bend/Bayfield direction. The perfect waypoint, as it turned out.

And talk about serendipity! I was almost out of coffee and the charging station was located in the parking lot of the Timmie’s on the main street (actually, Main Street)!

The station was easy to find (which is NOT ALWAYS the case), the app connected easily (again, NOT ALWAYS the case), and we both let out a bit of an exhale knowing that we’d leaped the final range hurdle, with an 80% charge more than capable of speeding us the 20+ kilometres to our final destination, where we’d plug-in the overnight charger. I ducked inside, grabbed another double-double, and sat back, enjoying the respite while the vehicle charged. The Queen, not content with EV apps and Google maps, turned her attention to another favourite, real estate dreaming.

Firing up the MLS, we noticed a couple of properties for sale and for lease in Exeter, and specifically a couple of properties in the historic downtown core. Now, there was no impetus to look at properties but why not follow the way that the road was taking us, and Exeter was leaving us happier and recharged by the minute. Once we reached the max, we headed down to the core and spied out the listings. One or two looked promising – again, not sure promising what – so in the days after we reached out to the agents to explore what-ifs. And then the pandemic hit HARD, lockdown came, and more pressing realities pressed the idea away…..for a while.

In early September, to recharge from a strenuous summer spent developing two print issues and delivering a wealth of online content, we decided to head back to the shore for a Covid-safe weekend, this time staying in Bayfield. It was a lovely time, and on the road back home we decided to stop in Exeter to recharge the vehicle. There’s also a lovely park in Exeter, and we’d recently added a puppy, Zoey, to the family. Zoey needed a good stretch-of-the-legs in some deep, green grass and lungs full of fresh, clean air. So Exeter it was (we could have made the full trip to Stratford with the full charge and the warmer temperatures). The fact that we could stop at Timmies and recharge the vehicle (and the driver) only added to the appeal. We also took the time to drive to the downtown core and see how the local merchants and businesses were doing. We were happy to note that most businesses had managed to sustain operations in spite of the historic challenges, and that people were (safely) going about their daily activities, a smile in their eyes as they greeted us from behind the masks.

When we returned to Kitchener, we made a few enquiries in regard to real estate in Exeter. Well, as things would happen, an interesting proposition was brought to us by a friend of A\J: there was a street level shop in a building in the middle of the historic downtown core, and the rent would be ‘subsidized’ by the philanthropically-inclined new owners for a year (at least). But we’d need to be ready to put staff in that office once the pandemic lifted – and be ready to use this gift as an opportunity to learn, listen and grow more earthy in our opinions and in our writing. We’re there now.

We’ve got plans again, tentative plans given the uncertain circumstances. But the plans are rooted in the core mission of our organization: to become the most effective story-teller of environmental stories that are read by a broad cross-section of Canadians. We’ve got roots in cities and bigger towns, graduating from Peterborough to KW, with stops in Toronto in between. We’ve got roots in academic circles of informed-opinions and opinion-formers. We’ve got roots in the eNGO community, and frequently seek to empower collaborations that deliver 1+1=3. But, as an organization, our roots had not yet extended to the fertile soil of a community like Exeter. So, we leaped…. again….and we’re ready to take bigger leaps in the near future.

We’ve already made some friends in the community, and have discussed how we can best become a good neighbour and an economic development supporter. We’re ideating lectures and panels and musical events. We’re engaging with schools and businesses and organizations to understand their environmental stories – and to share them with our national readership. Admittedly, we’re doing it slowly; slowly but surely. We’re planting the seeds that we hope will grow into strong roots that will allow our writing, our story-telling, to blossom and flourish.

In Exeter, Ontario, at the crossroad to Lake Huron shore, on the road to serendipity… and opportunity.

The post On The Road To Serendipity appeared first on A\J.

A ‘just transition’ is defined as ‘a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy’ by the Climate Justice Alliance. Just transitions take a holistic view of where we are going, as well as how we get there. When thinking of a just transition towards green energy, one of the groups that will be disproportionately affected is Indigenous communities. This is a direct result of a disproportionate dependency on fossil fuels to fuel both energy needs and daily life requirements. Additionally, these communities are also likely to experience the effects of climate change much more than others due to these changes impacting many aspects of their lives. Some of these changes can include loss of land and resources, extreme weather events impacting agriculture, future supply chain issues, and more. As a result of this, it is of paramount importance that for these indigenous communities, we ensure the transition to green energy is a just one.

This is where Melina Laboucan-Massimo saw an opportunity to make a difference. Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree, from the community of Little Buffalo, located in Alberta, Canada. Little Buffalo is an oil sands region, and as a result, Laboucan-Massimo grew up witnessing firsthand the negative impacts that oil sand development has had on the environment, as well as the development of her Indigenous community. To put into perspective how little the oil sands have done for Indigenous communities, Laboucan-Massimo states in this article with the Nobel Women’s Initiative that since 1978 over $14 billion had been made off of her family’s traditional territory, yet they still don’t have running water. She goes on to say that the more than 2600 oil wells on the land make it impossible to live sustainably, to make matters worse, almost 70% of Lubicon territory has been leased for future development without the consent of the Lubicon people, directly violating their charter rights.

Laboucan-Massimo has been attending protests about this matter since 1988, at the tender age of 7 years old. This first protest was in her Lubicron Cree community of Little Buffalo which held a 6-day protest against oil and gas drilling on their land. While her parents and grandparents were part of the blockade, Laboucan-Massimo watched from the safety of their car, with this experience having a profound impact on her. This protest in 1988 was a whole 34 years ago, yet oil and gas drilling continues on this land, much to its detriment. If the community of Little Buffalo sounds familiar, then you were probably paying attention to the news in 2011. This is because in 2011 the Rainbow Pipeline spill occurred on this land, causing a total of 28,000 barrels of oil to be spilled – the largest oil spill in Alberta in three decades. This spill is still impacting the community to this day, and those responsible for it, Plains Midstream, were only fined a measly $1.3 million two years after the spill. Were those funds used to clean up the area or were they enough to cover the costs of those cleanup efforts? No and no. After this spill, Laboucan-Massimo felt even more inspired to take action, saying in an interview with Mongabay, “Wow, I need to really start building: What does transition technology look like? What does a just transition look like in our communities? That’s why I founded Sacred Earth Solar, which began with my Master’s thesis…”

The creation and inspiration behind Sacred Earth Solar are why I find Laboucan-Massimo to be so inspiring personally. Sacred Earth Solar was born out of their Master’s degree thesis in Indigenous Governance, with a focus on energy which was completed at the University of Victoria. As part of her thesis, Laboucan-Massimo proposed building a solar-powered center in her hometown of Little Buffalo, in order to ensure just transition to green energy. This proposal was not without resistance, with Laboucan-Massimo recalling in an interview with Fashion Magazine, “One of my professors actually tried to dissuade me from doing it—he said ‘It’s too big of an undertaking, you’re not going to finish in time.’” Despite these concerns, Laboucan-Massimo decided to go ahead with the project due to her determination of creating a just transition for her community, as well as wanting to inspire others to do so. This was completed in 2015 and since then, the project has provided power to the community’s health center. This project, now known as the Piitapan Solar Project, involved the installation of 80 solar panels resulting in a 20.8kW renewable energy project – not only does this provide green energy, but also creates jobs in the community, and provides a template for other communities to follow. How inspiring is that? Despite even professors voicing their concerns, and having no experience directly in that field, Laboucan-Massimo followed through on her mission of creating a more sustainable future for her community.

After the establishment of this solar project, Laboucan-Massimo created the aforementioned Sacred Earth Solar. Sacred Earth Solar has now branched out to create projects outside of the Piitapan Solar Project in Little Buffalo. In all of its work, Sacred Earth Solar ensures that a just transition, as defined earlier in this article, can take place. According to their website, Sacred Earth Solar currently assists Indigenous communities in exploring renewable energy within the broader context of antiracist climate work, ensuring that these communities are given priority in keeping their communities safe and healthy. A just transition is one that Laboucan-Massimo is very passionate about, and in addition to setting up Sacred Earth Solar, also sits as the Senior Director of Just Transition at Indigenous Climate Action, an organization that aims to integrate Indigenous rights and knowledge into developing solutions for the climate crisis. Other initiatives by Sacred Earth Solar, and as a result Laboucan-Massimo, include the solarization of the art studio at Nimkii Aazhibikong with Onaman Collective in partnership with Indigenous Climate Action, which will serve as a centre for the language revitalization, transmission of indigenous knowledge, and communal space for Anishinaabek and surrounding Indigenous communities to have a communal space to share teachings. Another initiative included sending several sets of solar panels to Indigenous youth who were protesting at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek. These solar panels were used to power the kitchen and charge devices so that they could have communication, but also record the police brutality that was on display. Laboucan-Massimo in addition to sending these panels also joined Indigenous leaders, environmental activists, and other celebrities in the condemnation of the logging at Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek. Sacred Earth Solar has continued to provide green energy for those fighting for climate justice by solarizing three homes at the Gidimt’en checkpoint in Wet’suwet’en Territory. This was done so that families could have access to their territory as the Gidimt’en checkpoint is directly in the path of the proposed Coastal Gas Link pipeline. Additionally, Sacred Earth Solar has been creating tiny homes that run off of solar energy to assist those protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline. These tiny homes are set up directly in the path of the pipeline, acting as both an act of resistance, but also a symbol of how green energy can be used for a just transition.

As you can see, Laboucan-Massimo’s Master’s thesis has grown a movement towards a just transition outside of her home community of Little Buffalo. Sacred Earth Solar may, in my opinion, be one of her most notable initiatives, however, Laboucan-Massimo has done much more than this. In addition to being the Director of Just Transition at Indigenous Climate Action, she was appointed as the first Indigenous research fellow at the David Suzuki Foundation where she has continued her research on Climate Change, Indigenous Knowledge, and Renewable Energy. In order to disseminate the message around green energy in Indigenous communities, Laboucan-Massimo created the Power to the People series. This series takes a look at the renewable energy revolution in Indigenous communities around Canada and the world, showcasing how a just transition may occur. This series found many different projects from wind farms, to solar plants, to tidal electric projects, and serves as a showcase for how other communities may become self-sufficient. Laboucan-Massimo has also worked alongside icons such as Jane Fonda, David Suzuki, and Naomi Klein to help build a better future for not only Indigenous people but the planet. She has also given many speeches which have inspired many, some of these including US Congress, the Harvard Law Forum, in British Parliament, and numerous international organizations like Amnesty International, allowing for her message of equitable climate justice to be heard around the world.

If you did a thesis, I implore you to think back to it. I can remember the thesis I completed in my undergraduate degree very well. Now, prior to this, have you thought about your thesis since completing it? Furthermore, has your thesis been of use? For some of you I’m sure that answer is yes, but for others like myself, not so much. It is of such great inspiration that Laboucan-Massimo took an issue that was so dear to her, and despite resistance from even her own professors, turned this thesis into a project that has since spiraled outwards, creating a movement. It is a great message of being the change you want to see, no matter how big the mountain you must climb is. Laboucan-Massimo could have stopped there, feeling that by improving her community she has done enough, but instead she has since campaigned to create a just transition to green energy for Indigenous people and communities around the world, and also acts as an example of how the entire world must act. It is for these reasons that Melina Laboucan-Massimo is an Every Day Eco-Hero.

The post Every Day Eco-Heroes: Melina Laboucan-Massimo appeared first on A\J.

Artwork by Margarita Krasutskaya

On the theme of eco-anxiety, we partnered with Earth Day Canada to create our ‘Every Day Eco-Heroes’ series. The aim of this series was to shine a spotlight on Canadian environmental activists who make every day, Earth Day. This series can be found here:

1. Autumn Peltier 
2. Shefaza Esmail
3. Melina Laboucan-Massimo

Additionally we created a few off series posts, centred around ideas of sustainability and the feelings of eco-anxiety! These articles can be found here:

1. Sowing a Better Future
2. Our Environmental Origin Stories
3. Addressing Eco-Anxiety
4. Touch the Earth

Thank you so much for joining us for this collaboration, and a very special thanks to Earth Day Canada for making this possible. We hope you have had a great Earth Day so far, and hope that these articles can inspire you in some form or fashion to make every day Earth Day.

The post Earth Day 2022 appeared first on A\J.

The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

Reviewed by Mimi Shaftoe

The first time I read Oryx and Crake, it was like putting on a reverse version of rose-coloured glasses; I couldn’t stop drawing dark dystopian comparisons between the world on the page and the real one. I finished the book while on a road trip with my family the summer after grade 10. I remember feeling existential as I stared out the window at the landscape of concrete, billboards, industrial buildings and strip malls, probably muttering something dramatic under my breath like “Look out the window, we are literally living in Oryx and Crake.” The proximity, the almost-real-ness, of the imagined future in which the MaddAddam trilogy is set is what enthralled me and left me aghast when I first read these books as a teenager, and is what I think makes these books so powerful.

The MaddAddam trilogy is set in a future that is way too close for comfort, in which human intervention has irrevocably transformed the natural world, and a man-made catastrophe has wiped out a huge segment of the earth’s population. The series tackles a wide range of interconnected themes, from environmental destruction and the relationship between humans and the natural world, to unrestrained capitalism and consumerism, to patriarchy and sexism. To me, the books embody the idea that “It’s not Climate Change, it’s Everything Change” (which also happens to be the title of an essay Atwood wrote). In other words, the ecological crisis is a result of deeply unjust and destructive systems we’ve built, which affect every part of our daily lives. And getting ourselves out of this mess will require deep societal transformation.

Margaret Atwood famously prefers to refer to her work as ‘speculative fiction’ rather than science fiction, because she looks at issues and problems that already exist in the real world and simply extrapolates them to imagine a possible future. She illuminates the ways in which we are already in crisis and creates an unsettling sense that we could be barreling head on into the dystopian world she writes about… or that we may already be living in it! It really doesn’t seem far-fetched at all to imagine, for example, the Church of PetrOleum, where oil is worshipped and the bible is interpreted to mean that it is our divine right and holy obligation to extract oil.

The world of the MaddAddam trilogy is dark, but it’s also satirical and darkly funny, and it offers glimmers of hope which suggest that no matter how dark things get there is always the possibility of human goodness. The most hopeful element in this series, to me, is what Atwood has to say about the power of stories. If the entire trilogy is an allegory about climate change and humanity’s relationship with nature, then Atwood is suggesting that the stories we tell play an important part of the solution. I love some of the hymns she wrote for her fictional religion the God’s Gardeners, like ‘The Earth Forgives’ (which she actually recorded and released as part of the book promotion!) and the environmentally conscious, hopeful alternative they try to build in the midst of the rest of her dystopian world.

Throughout the books, she explores the stories we tell ourselves to create meaning in our lives, and the way these stories shape the way we relate to the world and the people around us. And while Atwood speculates about a grim future in this series, she also makes it clear that no future is set in stone, everything depends on what we do now.

So, let’s tell ourselves the kinds of stories that repair our relationship with the planet, and help us envision and create a just future.

“We have a choice to make now. We can return to our former path of destruction of the natural world…or we can change direction and build nature-based and community-based recovery strategies.” – Margaret Atwood

“Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats” by Margaret Atwood

Reviewed by Ishani Dasgupta

I sometimes take for granted the love I have received in this world and I most definitely have not considered that those who I love might not know it.

Let me be clear, I consider myself an admirer of Mother Nature and all of the complex, wonderful, and nice aspects of the biosphere. I do, after all, work in the environmental space and at times find myself in a unique position to write about one climate related issue or another. However, I never considered if the planet I am working so hard to protect actually knew that I cared for it, until I read Margaret Atwood’s poem “Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats”.

Rather, I was acutely stunned by the fact that I have loved nature quite selfishly.

In Atwood’s poem, which is inspired (as the name suggests) following a line from W. B. Yeats’ Hound Voice, she details a trip to a barren and mountainous landscape. When arriving near the landscape, the speaker finds herself lost in a serious thought about the history of change that may have occurred due to human activities.

“Because we love bare hills and stunted trees / we head north when we can, / past taiga, tundra, rocky shoreline, ice.” – Margaret Atwood, “Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats”

The speaker laments on whether the earliest human settlers shared a deep connection with the land. Whether they chose to “partner” with the elements and other animals to progress or carved the spirit of the landscape into their hearts. Importantly, the speaker assumes that it was at this point of time, when the first fires were being forged and guarded, that the soul of nature thrived.

“Everything once had a soul, / even this clam, this pebble. / Each had a secret name. / Everything listened. / Everything was real” – Margaret Atwood, “Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats”

It is explained that nature at this point did not always love you and therefore human patrons treaded the world with caution and perhaps fear; perhaps worrying if the next great natural disaster would completely wipe their civilization out. Although, with this fear came a connection to the land that we could not dream to recreate in the present.

“Everything once had a soul” and  “everything was real”, which meant that if you caused harm against the land you were on, you were hurting a conscious being. One with feelings and a spirit that could shake the centre that you grounded yourself on. How would it be to live in this time, when the very environment you lived in communicated to you on a daily basis and perhaps carried you through your life, as though it was a parent teaching and protecting its child?

“We long to pay that much attention. / But we’ve lost the knack… / All we hear in the wind’s plainsong / is the wind.” Margaret Atwood, “Improvisation on a First Line by Yeats”

And there it stands, as bleak as it can be stated: the greatest threat we have presented to nature is that “we have lost the knack” to pay it the close attention that we used to in the past.

I have been selfish with my love for nature. I loved it for its beauty, its complexity, and its purpose in my life. But have I truly loved it for its soul, its spirit, or the sacrifices it has made for me to live? Have I ever revered it and cared for it, as my ancestors did long before me?

Now, I can promise that I will try to raise my own attentiveness towards how I care for nature. I will love her as though she is my friend and my mother, as closely as I can to how they did in the past.

Hoping that one day I will finally understand that she has always, from the moment I was born to the and to the day I pass, loved me selflessly.

The Bedside Book of Birds – An Avian Miscellany by Graeme Gibson

Reviewed by Alex Goddard

Graeme Gibson’s The Bedside Book of Birds – An Avian Miscellany is a stunning collection of words and images expertly collected and curated to explore the longstanding relationship we have had with birds. As Gibson says, this book isn’t about birds themselves but about the varied and intimate relationship we have formed with them over the hundreds of millennia we have shared this earth. When reading this book, one of the immediate things that struck me was early in the book wherein Gibson describes that he came to birdwatching late in his life, not understanding it for a whole thirty seven years. I found this of particular interest as Gibson is someone who is synonymous with bird conservation in Canada and I would have assumed it to be a lifelong interest. I especially found this interesting as I myself can relate to these feelings shared by Gibson. Growing up in Barbados, we only have a few common species – blackbirds, doves, and sparrows, and while there are a few migratory birds, our wetlands are hard to reach and diminishing. As such, I had little interest in ornithology until I came to Canada, made friends with an avid birdwatcher, and began to go birdwatching with them. Now I take note of the birds around me much more, and enjoy birdwatching by myself from time to time. This was at the age of twenty three, and knowing that Gibson began his ornithological journey later in his life has been a huge source of inspiration to me, as it acted as a reminder that it really is never too late to pursue what you love, and certainly never too late to be the change you want to see.

The Bedside Book of Birds is a collection of factual accounts, poems, folklore, tales and myths divided into nine distinct sections, described by Gibson as different habitats – a wonderful way to divide the book. The majority of these sections are written by other authors, ranging from real experiences seen through Darwin’s accounts of tame birds in Voyage of the Beagle, to fictional pieces, such as an excerpt from Haurki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. From ancient text written by the Mayans about the plumed serpent, to Bible excerpts about doves representing holiness, this book contains excerpts dating all the way back to B.C.

The beginning of each new ‘habitat’ starts with a piece written by Gibson himself. These passages often offer a glimpse into Gibson’s life, experiences and thoughts as an ornithologist, and the ways birdwatching has evolved over the years. In these excerpts Gibson allows us to feel the same thrill he did when seeing some amazing birds, with accounts of the Gundlach Hawk in Cuba which only a handful have seen in the wild, to unknowingly profound discoveries, such as his encounter with the Black-backed Woodpecker. In these passages we also are offered a glimpse into Gibson’s thoughts on birdwatching, ones I found very interesting. Throughout these passages Gibson often speaks of why we birdwatch, and the ways that humans imbue their own traits into birds, allowing for us to feel connected with nature. In one excerpt, Gibson explains that birdwatching can encourage a state similar to that of rapture – causing the forgetfulness that allows individual consciousness to blend with something other than itself. It is excerpts like this that really convey the passion that Gibson felt about birds and birdwatching, and it is hard not to feel the same passion he does when reading such vividly written passages accompanied by the stunning imagery throughout the book. Gibson, of course, was a champion of bird conservation, and themes surrounding this are found within these introductory passages. These are explored through a guilt that Gibson seems to feel about birdwatching, touching on the ‘possessive’ nature of humans to feel as though they own these birds by naming and seeing them, as well as touching on old birding techniques of killing the bird prior to identification. Themes of extinction and conservation are also found within many of the other passages included, however I found it pertinent that the only work Gibson included that was of his own was an excerpt from his novel Perpetual Motion where Gibson describes the way the passenger pigeon was hunted to its extinction as it was just assumed that the millions of birds would return each year, and were an endless supply.

So little does Gibson crave the spotlight for himself that the editorial section of the book ends with a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, rather than choosing to end the book with a few of his own words. It is this desire to let other authors speak for the birds in the best way possible that truly shows Gibson’s love for the avian species and made it an exceptional read by allowing us to be struck by the same wonder and awe that he and the medley of authors were. The different habitats make the book easy to pick up and put down at any point, or to peck at – like a bird if you will. As a testament to his conservation efforts, the last pages of the book direct readers to different conservation organisations in their respective countries, as well as pointing out half of the after-tax royalties of sales are donated to the Pelee Island Bird Observatory. This book has something for anyone even remotely interested in our relationship with the avian species as it is hard not to find yourself feeling the same enthusiasm Gibson does as you flip through the beautifully written and illustrated tales throughout.

***

“It’s we who have made the cages. It’s we who must open them” – Graeme Gibson

Stay tuned for next week’s FOR THE LOVE OF NATURE piece.

And don’t forget to register for Nature Canada’s Pimlott Award Celebration happening on March 2, 2022, where Margaret Atwood and the late Graeme Gibson will be honoured and recognized as champions for birds and nature. Check it out here!

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Almost every sector of the economy would benefit from oil sand development. But through all the positive economic growth Canada would receive, it is necessary to look at the impact on the environment it will have.

The refined oil will be transported through pipelines. Any released bitumen through a spill, leak, or rupture can contaminate the surrounding land or water. Tailing ponds to store the liquid to retrieve the oil can be shown to leak chemicals into the surrounding water supply like the Athabasca River and the Mackenzie River. Additionally, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conducted in the area shows that the overall quantity of chemicals (PAH) is lower than that which naturally occurs in recovering petrol. A change in formula can have health risks to the surrounding population.

These chemicals can cause upper respiratory issues on site. Moreover, the chemicals that are released through a spill, leak, or rupture, that do not work directly on-site will soon have more complicated issues like headache, nausea, skin rashes, and respiratory symptoms which coincide with exposure to crude oil.

Working on the oil sands can have an increased health risk, and during the current COVID-19 pandemic it will make it much worse. According to unnamed contractors, workers did not have inadequate distancing, testing, or sanitization Those that currently work at CNRL Horizon in the Alberta Oil sands have stated, “We don’t feel safe here, but we keep working because everybody wants to work,” one contractor at Horizon said.

It is difficult for these workers to bring complaints about these safety issues to those higher on the corporate ladder,  due to fear of losing their job. The liability does not fall on the oil sand operators anymore regarding the environment or the health and safety of the workers.

“We’re all feeling like, head down, blinders on. Don’t even look around you and just try to get through your shift without getting sick.”

It is frivolous to think that mining for crude oil will disappear in the next 10 years. But companies should have federal and provincial policies in place to protect the health of their workers – and the general public – from irreversible harm. “Personally, with experience in seeing all sides of corporate and environmental relationships, I know products must exist for now. But it is difficult for me to understand why an unexplored market could be so scary to a company when investments are made all the time for new products. 

Do you think you could help me understand?

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Spring of 1970 – A shift in attitudes, values, and beliefs of 20 million Americans embodied through a movement of consciousness about our planet. 

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, U.S., created Earth Day as a way to give environmental issues a voice and put them on the national agenda. In December 1970, Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency to tackle environmental issues – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, efforts to tackle environmental degradation and climate change have been adopted worldwide from introducing policy and legislation, to funding clean technologies and renewable energy, to manufacturing biodegradable materials. Here, we look at the honouring of this day through the decades. 

News headline from the first Earth Day, 1970 // Source: ETEE

In the decades leading up to the first ever Earth Day, industrialization took over North America and other parts of the world. Manufacturing (1900s), mining (1930s), transportation (1950s) and retailing (1970s), along with rapid urbanization and consumer culture, all played a part in developing our world as we know it today. North America was consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Mainstream North America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment seriously threatens human health.

1980 – In the U.S., this year saw significant environmental legislative achievements. Just 10 years after the first Earth Day, government protections over the environment drastically increased. By 1980, the following U.S. government acts were passed: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 

On September 11th, Paul Tinari, a graduate student from Queen’s University, launched the first Canadian Earth Day. Flora MacDonald, then MP for Kingston, Ontario and the islands, officially opened Earth Day Week, encouraging MPs across the country to declare a cross-Canada annual Earth Day. 

Through the 70s and 80s, Earth Day in North America focused heavily on pollution. By Earth Day 1990, organizers and environmental agencies shifted their focus to climate change. 

1990 – Earth Day goes global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. 

The activities of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990 presented a huge boost to recycling efforts and paved the way for the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The ‘Rio Declarations’ laid out 15 principles recognizing the impact of human activities on sustainability and committing to sustainability goals. In 1997, the United Nations Kyoto Protocol was signed setting commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide as well as establish the connection between human activities and climate change.

In Canada, this was the start of Earth Day Canada (Jour de la Terre Canada), combining efforts from both France and Canada, and the internationalization of Earth Day. Since 1995, Quebec has celebrated Earth Day through raising awareness on environmental issues. 

Earth Day Canada Logo // Source: EarthDay.ca

2000 – Earth Day goes digital. Through the power of connectivity, hundreds of millions of people in 184 countries celebrate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, with a focus on clean energy. 

By leveraging the power of the Digital Revolution, Earth Day in the new millennium meant that environmental activities and initiatives spread faster to many parts of the world. Suddenly, awareness became the greatest tool in the fight against climate change. 

2010 – This was a challenging time for the environmental community as they faced climate deniers, well-funded oil enthusiasts with a not-so-environmentally-friendly agenda, a disinterested public, and neutral politicians. The Earth Day Network repositioned Earth Day as a day for environmental activism as the right time. On Earth Day 2010, over 250,000 people participated in a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of millions of people observed Earth Day around the globe. Climate activism gained serious momentum. 

In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was drafted, going beyond the Kyoto Protocol, by setting a goal of achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050. In Canada, the French and Quebec teams joined forces to take the Earth Day movement to a new level for the French-speaking world. 

In 2018, Greta Thunberg acted as a voice for youth, by starting a protest in front of the Swedish parliament building, vowing to continue until the Swedish government met the carbon emissions target agreed by world leaders in Paris, in 2015. Students around the world quickly began following her lead, staging large protests and demanding change.

Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike // Source: DW

In 2019, Earth Day Canada formed an alliance with EcoKids to enable environmental initiatives to be carried out across all provinces and territories. That year, I remember attending a climate rally in Ottawa and feeling empowered by the movement as a young adult living in the world today. 

2020 – Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The social and cultural movements that we saw in the 1970s rose back up again as we were hit with one of the largest crises of our time: COVID-19. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic transcended almost everything in 2020 (the good and the bad), including the environment, from cancelled summits on climate and biodiversity, to a temporary dip in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, to greater awareness of the link between human health and climate change. As climate rallies and events were cancelled, Earth Day quickly pivoted from mobilizing millions on the ground to raising hundreds of millions of voices digitally. Fittingly, in Canada, the Earth Day theme was climate action with the main message being: “keeping our distance at home, but taking action for the planet together”. Now, we’re in the slow and gradual transition to a green recovery. 

Present day – The fight for our planet continues with increasing urgency. A\J has partnered with Earth Day Canada to shine a light on Earth Day celebrations through the years and explore the evolution of this day through this editorial series. This Earth Day will be spent at home, and Earth Day Canada has put together some practical, creative, and smart ideas for #EarthDayAtHome. The Earth Day Canada 2021 theme is Take Care of the Planet. The official campaign features “animals that have to clean up their polluted environments themselves”. The goal is to raise awareness about the urgency we are facing, and to encourage Canadians to #TakeCareOfThePlanet every day because it’s our responsibility to do so. 

Earth Day Canada’s #TakeCareOfThePlanet 2021 Campaign // Source: EarthDay.ca

Stay tuned for next week’s article for more about what Earth Day means for us this year, and how we can and should be celebrating the planet in the present day.

This article is part of a 3-part editorial series, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, titled ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Earth Day’. Check out the full series here!

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Due to this strict lockdown, it is projected that the world’s CO2 emissions will drop 8% in 2020 (although at the time of this article, they are already projected to increase again). With this global pandemic being top of mind, there is another looming threat: climate change. In recent years, we have consistently seen record-breaking environmental disasters that have been made worse by the climate crisis. According to the UN, over 7,300 extreme weather events have been recorded since 2000. Simultaneously, nine of the ten warmest years on record occurred between 2005 and 2019, with the world’s five warmest years occurring from 2015 to 2019.

…this is our chance to get on top of climate change. The question is, how do we do that, and will we be able to rise to the challenge?

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Australia and California have experienced their worst wildfire seasons on record. Increasingly severe droughts in South America and Africa resulted in widespread famine this summer. Flooding in Europe and North America has continued consistently breaking the previous years’ records as storms continue getting bigger, more dangerous and more common around the world. Evidently, the short-term emissions decrease from the COVID-19 pandemic will not be enough to impact the very real threat the climate crisis poses. COVID-19 has been hailed as humanity’s chance to “click the reset button” to “build back better”, with the idea that this is our chance to get on top of climate change. The question is, how do we do that, and will we be able to rise to the challenge?

Man at a climate protest. Sign reads, “Now is not the time for business as usual. Climate action NOW”. // Source: Unsplash

Now is the time for governments to push ambitious climate policy when restarting economies

Although energy-related CO2 was expected to drop in 2020, what matters is what we do next. During the initial phases of the pandemic, government relief packages around the world have focused on sustaining livelihoods and providing immediate relief. Stimulus packages will now be focused on global economic recovery. From the last economic crash in 2008, many stimulus packages focused on propping up fossil fuel-based companies, and in 2010 global emissions saw the largest increase ever recorded.

To learn from our mistakes, and continue this trend of declining emissions, governments should consider three main policy strategies according to the International Energy Agency (IEA):  

1. Governments should ensure policy predictability and reassure investors of their energy and climate commitments. This will be crucial for industries to establish business plans focused on sustainability.
2. Governments should reduce administrative barriers to renewable energy projects by streamlining permits and other administrative tasks.
3. Renewables should be a key part of stimulus packages. Investments should prioritize industries that have high job creation and are building infrastructure that supports efficient, resilient energy systems that will lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There should be a focus on the labor-intensive building sector, prioritizing renovation programs to increase energy efficiency and installation of renewable heat sources. In addition to labor intensive jobs, the government should focus on stimulating companies in the smart, digital, and resilient energy infrastructure industries.

Overall, short term policy actions should relate to ambitious medium- and long-term visions for emissions reductions.

There are additional measures that governments can take according to Dr. Fatih Birol, executive director with IEA. Incentives can be put in place to encourage consumers to upgrade large purchases to more energy efficient ones, such as cars and washing machines. With an increase in people working from home, emphasis can be put on upgrading electricity and internet infrastructure, basing these networks on clean, renewable power. Investment can be made in industries that will be vital in the clean energy transition such as batteries, hydrogen, and carbon capture to name a few. This can help scale up these technologies, so they become competitive in the current energy market. Governments can also bring in more private investment by providing clarity in the market. Investments may come in the form of carbon pricing, removing fossil fuel subsidies, and offering loans on renewable energy projects. These measures are crucial because governments drive more than 70% of global energy investments according to the IEA.

Divestment in Fossil Fuel is Trending

Source: Shuttershock 

This push for sustainability as a priority in rebuilding the economy comes at a time when many large institutions are pulling their money out of fossil fuels. BlackRock, the world’s biggest financial investment firm, announced in January that it would be pulling investments from coal. The CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, said that “climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects.” BlackRock states that it will make sustainability one of its key investment factors and will offer investment portfolios that exclude fossil fuels. Fink also stated that “in the near future – and sooner than most anticipate – there will be a significant reallocation of capital” citing the transition of investments away from fossil fuels, towards sustainable alternatives. This came after a 2019 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that BlackRock lost an estimated $90 billion over the past decade by ignoring the financial risk of investing in fossil fuels. BlackRock’s multi-billion-dollar investments in oil companies – such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP – were among the reasons for the losses in the $6.5 trillion assets that they manage. Also, BlackRock was the biggest investor in the coal industry and one of the top three investors in big oil companies.

BlackRock joins a growing movement of divestment of fossil fuels. The approximated value of institutions who have committed to divest from fossil fuels is at $14.48 trillion worldwide, with 1248 institutions divesting. These institutions cover almost every aspect of society. There are huge banks, faith groups, countries, cities, non-for-profits, retirement funds, and the list is expected to grow continuously. This clearly shows a trend in society to stop funding fossil fuel projects, and COVID-19 has accelerated the clear need for divestment from fossil fuels.

How Governments are Faring in their Recovery Packages

Some governments are watching market trends and prioritizing sustainability in their recovery packages. On May 27th, the European Union unveiled their new economic recovery plan in response to COVID-19, which highlighted a €750 billion ($1.163 trillion CAD) economic stimulus package and featured a considerable investment in Green initiatives. EU representatives earmarked 30% of total expenditure for spending to effectively achieve climate-oriented goals outlined in both the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Green spending laid out in the stimulus package is comprised of five main elements including: building efficiency, clean technology investment, low-carbon vehicles, agriculture & land, and a category for miscellaneous investments to foster a ‘just transition’. Each of the five elements aim to create and maintain thousands of jobs while improving the carbon footprint of each nation and establishing a foundation for future green industries.

Compared to the intensive COVID-19 response plan of the EU, Canada has failed to establish a defined response plan or actively fund green industries. The Canadian government has reportedly spent $18.12 billion CAD in supporting the fossil fuel industry since the beginning of the pandemic in the form of supporting fossil fuel infrastructure, suspending requirements for environmental reporting, and tax relief for petroleum producers. This spending comes despite many banks and insurers pulling out of Canadian oil and tar sands projects, and BP oil forecasting that oil demand peaked last year. Additionally, the United Nations Environment Program has stated that current national government plans would lock the world into 120 times more emissions than what is needed to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius global temperature increase, and that 85 percent of planned oil and gas development is in North America.

This fossil fuel spending is in contrast with $15 billion CAD in supporting sustainability projects. A total of $2.5 billion CAD has been provided to fund two separate energy related initiatives. $1.72 billion CAD was allocated to clean up retired oil and gas wells, maintaining some 5,200 jobs in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Alberta. Another $750 million CAD was allotted to launch the emissions reduction fund that aims to support workers and reduce emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector. On November 19th, the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act was presented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and outlines a system for which future Canadian governments must establish 5-year targets and reviews moving forward to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Despite the creation of this system requiring future governments to create emission targets and reviews, there are no binding rules or penalties for failure to meet targets.

Canada’s COVID-19 response creates a framework for a review system but fails to define a plan of action and set into motion specific goals and projects. The Net-Zero Emissions Act creates a framework for future governments but does not address current industry issues during the pandemic the way the EU COVID-19 response stimulus package does. Advocacy groups have criticized the Prime Minister’s new bill, claiming it is an empty plan that fails to spur immediate action or create penalties for missed targets. Comparatively, the EU’s stimulus package illustrated an organized and structured plan with specific goals moving beyond the pandemic. The recovery plan and stimulus package presented by the EU should serve as a model upon which Canada could immediately begin to construct a sustainable economic future.

This article is part of our March 2021 Western Student Editorial Series – a series that showcases the works of students in the Collaborative Specialization in Environment and Sustainability program. Read more articles from this series here!

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