On Civic Holiday Put Climate First on the First -- Happy Camping

Put Climate First on August 1st – Happy Camping

It’s been the coolest July at the Cottage since I’ve been coming here.  This week the forecast is for highs as low as 16 degrees Celsius.  Sometimes it is hard to defend our focus on climate change when the weather isn’t telling us the climate is warming at all.  That’s the difference between weather and climate.  Weather is what happens every day and it is very changeable.  Climate is the bigger picture – the average of the weather over many years.  The bigger trends.  And science continues to tell us, in spite of this chilly summer at this particular location, the overall climate is warming quickly. 

The consequences of quick changes in climate are severe weather events.  Here in Haliburton we had the heaviest rainfall anyone can remember in 24 hours.  Roads washed out and we had brief power outages.  There was threat of flooding in Minden.  We were lucky the damage wasn’t worse.  We all remember floods last year in Calgary and Toronto.  Manitoba now faces a yearly diet of severe flooding.  Warmer air holds more water so when it rains it pours.  And the meandering jet stream goes more slowly, allowing clouds to sit in one spot and pour water down for days, while areas on the other side of the jet stream don’t get any and experience drought.  We haven’t begun to imagine how these accelerating trends will affect our food supply.  Our farmers will have to be adaptable and resilient.

August 1^st is a civic and a provincial holiday over much of the country so we encourage you to take this opportunity to write a letter to your provincial leaders, or your local utilities.  At the provincial level much can be done to help us deal with reducing our own ghg pollution.  Ask them to support programs to retrofit your homes with better insulation or more efficient appliances.  If you don’t live in a province with a smart, interactive grid that allows you to generate solar or wind power and contribute it to the grid system this should be a priority.  Provinces are responsible for the electricity sector.  How do you generate electricity where you live?  How is your province planning to increase renewable energy?  If you don’t know the answer, ask them to tell you in your letter.   And please, send a copy of your letter to climatefast@climatefast.ca.  We want to know how many of you are responding to our appeals for letters.  A sample letter can be found on our website

The August 1^st weekend is also the biggest weekend of the year for car traffic as people pile into their cars to go to the cottage or go camping.  Instead of food fasting why not try carbon fasting this coming long weekend.  Get to your destination by bike or bus.  Enjoy camping out instead of going to a cottage complete with all the power luxuries of home.  Enjoy some fresh air and exercise whether you go to the country or stay in the city.  But above all, be safe.  And have a great long weekend.

O Canada! We Stand on Guard For Thee -- July 1st

O Canada!  We Stand on Guard For Thee

It’s July 1^st and we celebrate our country’s birthday.  It’s a good time to reflect on what it means to be a Canadian – especially in times of great change; and especially in times like these when we face dilemmas like climate change.

What will Canada be like in twenty or fifty years?  What difference will it make if we just stay with the status quo, and continue building our economy based on mining and fossil fuels, as we have done for two centuries—or if we do as ClimateFast asks and work to make the transition toward renewable energy?  Prime Minister Harper says that no country will make a change if it means a slowing economy or loss of jobs.  He believes he is defending Canada’s best interests by hanging on to fossil fuels as the foundation of who we are.  I respectfully disagree.

I believe that if we stay the present course, we will be writing the death warrant of Canada as a significant nation in the world.  We’ll be hanging on to the past instead of moving into the future. 

I believe that we must explore and take risks, to discover the underpinnings of a new economy for Canada in the twenty-first century.  I see a future based on renewable energy of many different types.  I see a future based on the innovation of our people to design smart, interactive networks, and to create new models of energy storage and delivery.  I also see a future based on new relationships between our workplaces and our communities, where employers—job creators—are accountable not only to their stock holders, but also to their workers, their communities that resource them, and to the earth that sustains us all.

In this system it would not be possible for a company to determine its own self-interest as based only on a financial bottom line for a few people.  The financial and social well-being of all of us would have to be considered.  We would work through competing interests using good science, open dialogue, and mutual respect.  We would practice democracy in our families and become good at building consensus, so that we could translate those skills into good decision-making in our schools, workplaces, communities, and governments.

Let’s dream big for Canada and let’s put our life energy into making it happen.

Will you support our ClimateFirst on the First of the Month campaign? 

Will you commit to writing one letter a month on or around the first of the month. 

Will you invite your friends and family to join you?

If we can organize 12 people in every riding in Canada to get together and write one letter around the first of the month, it will make the difference. 

Together we will generate the political will to

·      End all fossil fuel subsidies

·      Put a price on carbon

·      Focus priorities on a transition to renewable energy.

Write your letter today, and send us a copy by e-mail please.