May Day! May Day! Be a First Responder to the Climate Crisis

May Day! May Day!  Be a First Responder to the Climate Crisis

ClimateFast is inspired by the initiative of Joseph Boutilier, founder of Unity for The Climate Like many of us, he is very concerned about the direction of our Federal Government and its inability to take serious action to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.  He is shocked at the dismantling of environmental regulations, and the attack on the free speech of government scientists.  And he has decided to take personal action to raise public awareness and call for a complete turnaround in Canadian policy. 

As a symbol of the unity he seeks, with our brothers and sisters, the First Nations; the unity of people with one another all around the earth and the unity of people with the earth itself.  He calls for unity among all political parties to rally together to lead us toward real solutions.  He has nine specific demands for political change.  Joseph is one example of a First Responder – a Warrior.  He is not giving up, but is instead giving his time and his life energy to make change.   With the current IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change) reports, we all need to be first responders.  We all need to do what we can to raise awareness.  The IPCC told us the only thing stopping us from implementing readily available solutions is political will.  The people are not asking for change and the leaders are not leading.

Joseph’s demands are not the same as ClimateFast’s.  We want serious policy change on three fronts:

• ·      Ending all subsidies to fossil fuels
• Putting a price on carbon
• ·      Creating a renewable energy plan for Canada.

 Joseph is riding a unicycle from his hometown in Victoria to Parliament Hill.  The journey will be very difficult.  It will take five months for him to make it.  He needs our help along the way.  ClimateFast has decided to embrace his campaign and support it.  You can follow his journey on twitter at @josephboutilier.  His list of seven demands can be found at:  his website, http://unityfortheclimate.ca/manifesto.

  

The trip began in Victoria on April 6^th.  As I write this he is already riding along Okanagan Lake.   He hopes to end in Ottawa in time for the opening of Parliament on September 15^th.  Joseph will stay in Ottawa and join ClimateFast on its five day Fast for Climate Leadership between Sunday, September 28^th and Thursday, October 2^nd.  All along the way he needs your support. 

As President of Canadian Unitarians For Social Justice, I am recommending to all Unitarians along his route to welcome Joseph into your homes and hold events in your community in support of his cycle.  Help him raise public awareness of these important issues.  If you are not along his route you may wish to raise money for his journey. 

We can all be first responders.  Join our fast on the first day of every month.  Give time and reflection to what you might be able to do to make a difference.  We all don’t have to do something as dramatic as riding a unicycle across the country.  But we can pay a personal visit to our MP and tell them how important it is to work with other parties on the solutions.  Tell them you are hungry for climate leadership.  Speak to your family, friends and neighbours.  Tell them how worried you are about the future for our children and grandchildren.  Ask your facebook friends to support Joseph’s ride.  Take some action every first of the month. 

And plan now to join us, on parliament hill, September 28^th to October 2^nd.  Let us know if you are coming so we can welcome you!

Tell our leaders we want Action on the Climate Fast!

Be Smart Not Fuelish on April 1st!

Why not try carbon fasting for your Fast for Climate Leadership?  It’s so easy.  There are so many ways you can do it.  Each person designs their own carbon fast so that it is something that stretches them toward a new level of conservation, and healthy lifestyle.

CarbonFast through Diet

Choosing your diet consciously is an important way to reduce greenhouse gases and improve the environment.  Factory farming of all types is much harder on the environment than organic farming.  Buying your food from small local farmers is much less energy intensive than buying, processing, and transporting food from all over the world.  Fresher and more delicious too!

Reducing the amount of meat you eat is always helpful.  Some people would give up beef and lamb because they produce a lot of methane and because it takes a lot of pounds of grain to grow a pound of beef.  Those who have already stopped eating red meat may stop eating chicken, or go vegetarian or vegan.  Some will choose to pay for organic food.

Organic farmers enrich the soil using natural methods and don’t dump excessive chemicals and organic nutrients into the water system.  Some will begin to plan to grow their own food.

CarbonFast through Transportation

On April 1st pick one thing to do for a day to see how it feels.

If you usually drive, try taking the bus or riding your bike. You might find it much less stressful.  Learning how to get around on a bike is fun and exhilarating with the added benefit that you get your exercise and become fit. Walk as many places as you can.

Take the train. Write the government a letter telling them the trains aren’t running often enough and are too expensive. Train travel has to be made more attractive. Try Skyping more often and flying less.  Airplanes are the most energy consuming mode of travel.

CarbonFast through Investment

April 1st book yourself an energy audit for your house.  Think about how we will heat our homes without oil and gas.  Can you renovate for better efficiency?

Do you have a rooftop that can generate good power with solar collectors?  Invest in the future.  Help meet our power needs so that we don’t even need coal or nuclear power.  We need a lot of solar collectors.  If you don’t have a good roof, or you don’t have the money to invest, connect yourself with a Renewable Energy Coop.  In Ottawa, support Ottawa Renewable Energy Coop.  Lease them your roof and they will put the solar collectors on.

Take your investments out of fossil fuels if you can figure out how to do so.  Try to make money on the solutions, not the things that hold us back.

CarbonFast through Simple Living

Make April 1st a buy nothing day.  Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.  Go through your closets and pass on some things somebody else might enjoy.  Instead of going out, stay home and do something interesting.  Have a social time with family.  Play games.  Make crafts.  Get unwired for a day.  Listen to music.  Make music.

Turn down the heat and wear sweaters.  Hang out your clothes to dry – outside or inside.  Plan your use of electricity.  Pay attention to water conservation.  It takes energy to treat water.  Pay attention to what you put down the drain.  Make your daily living habits a sacred ritual that honour our mother, the earth.

And Don’t Forget to Take Action!

• Write a letter to your city councilllor about bike lanes and complete streets that are safe and accessible for everyone.  
• Lobby your city to stop selling bottled water at city hall and make fountains available.  Tell them your thoughts on a pipeline going through your city.
• Write a letter to your premier about the overall energy strategy for your province.  In Ontario you could write a letter against nuclear power and recommend the province negotiate a water power agreement with Quebec.  You could ask for much stronger house retrofit programs for conservation, and an expansion of the amount of solar and wind power that can be sold to the grid.
• Write a letter to the Prime Minister and the Environment minister demanding a whole new level of environmental protection laws to replace the ones he eliminated.  And a restoration of the environmental science work that was being done in Canada.  Insist that those leaky tailings ponds in the oil sands be cleaned up by the oil companies before any new projects can be started.
• And send your letter to the newspaper as well – perhaps a shorter version.  Post it on your facebook page.  Tweet it to your followers.  Spread the word.  We need to engage the public and we need to let our politicians know that if they don’t show strong leadership on this file, we will not elect them.

Ask our leaders to:

• Eliminate all subsidies, tax breaks, and exploration incentives to fossil fuels.
• Put a price on carbon
•  Develop a Renewable Energy Plan for Canada.

One letter, one action, one public education event at a time, we can raise public awareness that we are engaged in a major transition time.  We are building the road to a future we can be proud of.  We are building a world that will respect nature; that will offer a good life for our grandchildren and their children.

Don’t be a fossil fool.  Put Climate First on the First of the Month.

Climate First on March First -- The Carbon Budget

Climate First on the First -- March 1st -- The Carbon Budget

February 11th the Federal Government came out with its annual budget.  It establishes the financial spending plan for the government in all areas of Federal Government activity – the military, income support programs, environment, First Nations, inspection and regulation, and so on.  It establishes the economic priorities including continued strong subsidies to oil and gas companies while renewable energy programs languish.  What it does not do, is establish our carbon budget and how we plan to meet it. (Huffington Post 2014 02 07)

Canada needs a carbon budget if we are to keep global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius (as all world leaders including Mr. Harper have agreed to do.).   According to the film made by 350.org called “Do the Math”, the problem is simple.  They told us we have five times more existing reserves of fossil fuels than we can afford to burn.  The recent report from the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has radically reduced that budget.  It suggests we only have a 66% chance of holding climate warming to 2 degrees C if we can hold future emissions to 270 gigatonnes — everything more than that risks frequent, intense  and disastrous weather events.

Burning the fossil fuel that corporations now have in their reserves would result in the emission of 2,795 gigatonnes of carbon – almost ten times the safe amount.  Fossil fuel companies are planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.  Millions of lives and perhaps civilization itself may be at stake.

Every country in the world needs to be developing the capacity to closely track its carbon usage, and to take corrective action when we are exceeding our limits.  What we count is what we value.  We must count our greenhouse gas emissions and systematically reduce them.

In November, during the UN Climate talks, Germanwatch released the Climate Change Performance Index.  Canada and Australia are the worst performers of all industrialised countries.  Warsaw. (18. Nov. 2013) "The new edition of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) was released by Germanwatch and CAN Europe in Warsaw at the UN climate talks today. The results show emissions worldwide have climbed to a new peak and no single country is yet on track to prevent dangerous climate change."

The world must come to negotiated agreements as to what is fair carbon usage for each country and how the negotiated standards will be enforced.  We would like to see Canada leading the world towards a transition to a renewable energy economy.  Instead, we are being dragged kicking and screaming to the table.  We need an attitude change before COP20 (United Nations Climate Conference) in November.

Instead, we continue to make oil and gas the foundation of our economy while other countries move ahead into the Fourth Revolution – The Energy Revolution toward renewable energy.

Are you fasting with us on Climate First on the First of the Month?  Will you take action this month?  Write a politician in your area asking them what the carbon budget is for your city, province, or for Canada.  Or write a letter to the paper pointing out the need for a carbon budget.  And don't forget to let us know if you are participating at ClimateFast.  Also, see our action page at CUSJ (Canadian Unitarians For Social Justice)

Fast for Climate Action on the First of the Month -- Join Us

For two years now, ClimateFast has conducted a fast on parliament hill – Hungry for Climate Leadership – from September 21^st to October 2^nd.  (The UN Day of Peace and the UN Day of Non-violence.)  It was to be a peaceful protest of the inaction of our own government and of governments around the world and their refusal to take on the challenge of climate change.

This year we realized – it is not enough to carry this concern for 12 days and then put it down and do nothing for the rest of the year.  But how can we raise enough political will to make change happen?  We are only a dozen people with jobs and many volunteer commitments.  The answer to that question is two-fold.  First, we must make adjustments for our size and our energy.  Then we need faith that if we communicate the urgency, speak truth and put our concerns out there, the resources will come. 

There is a world-wide movement out there of hundreds, even thousands of groups who all want to see the problem of climate change tackled, with commitment and innovation, using the knowledge, experience, and technologies of every human discipline.  We must learn to work together, each contributing something special to the movement as a whole. 

ClimateFast promotes the value of the spiritual fast as a way of giving our actions more thought.  If we ground our work in deep values, and if we can find the spiritual resources to stay the course when the way is hard, we believe we can make a difference in people’s hearts.

There is no one answer to the problem of climate change.  Yes, humans caused this problem and must change their behaviour, but nature’s ways are contributing too.  We have a huge job to learn to live in harmony with nature.

My recent journey with First Nations people from the Algonquin nation is teaching me how big our challenge is.  I have come to understand that our whole society is based on false philosophical principles and that we will likely never learn to live in harmony with nature as long as we keep this broken foundation.  We believe we can own land and do what ever we want with it.  From this belief we determined we could own life itself, and control it.  This is a philsophy of death, not life.  These beliefs have made it possible for us to destroy whole tracks of land so that they can no longer support life – and think nothing of it.

The way of indigenous peoples is to live on the land and to share, --always respecting the capacity of the land to regenerate itself.  When more than one group wants to use the same resources – the same water, the same air, the same forests – then they must talk to one another and consider the well-being of the land and make a plan to share with respect.

Climate change is a global problem and all over the world we must get together and talk with one another about how to preserve the land so it will continue to be fruitful for our children and our grandchildren.  Together we must make a plan for how to reduce our damaging behaviour and how to share the benefits and the consequences of the changes we must make. 

Transition is difficult and sometimes painful.  We can easily see the losses in front of us and it is sometimes more difficult to see the potential benefits and possible increases in well-being.  Proverbs 28:18 – “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  We all need a vision of what such harmony with nature would look like.  And we all need to act in faith that others will cooperate and that we can find the ideas and the means to make this transition and build a new world for generations to come.

With this vision in mind, I commit myself to join ClimateFast in its Climate First on the First of the Month campaign.  We are inviting the people of Canada, and the people of the world, to fast or take action or both on the first of every month until our collective leaders come to the table with respect and create a plan that:

·      Sets aggressive targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

·      Ends all subsidies to carbon fuels

·      Puts a price on carbon designed to decrease consumption

·      Focusses planning and resources on a transition to largely renewable energy

By participating in this fast, I stand in solidarity with Yeb Saño, from the Philippines, and with vulnerable people around the world who are most affected by dangerous climate events.  I will be doing a dawn to dusk fast, and will focus my social action efforts around the first of every month.  I join with a growing movement of fasters including youth groups, environmentalists, and faith communities who are calling world leaders to responsible climate action now.  We want Action for Climate—Fast! 

The wonderful group that is coordinating the International Fast is the Climate Action Network.  You can keep up with their news at: http://www.climatenetwork.org.  Join the fast at : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1n85ZMaTJC4vF9jvOmsSmVJ2ZelGP87pkN_huW9S8X_4/viewform.  And Climate Action Network Canada

ClimateFast will be conducting the Canadian Climate First on the First of the Month campaign.  Sign up with us to fast too.  Help us keep track of all the Canadian inititatives.  Take the pledge as a person or as an  organization. 

And Canadian Unitarians For Social Justice will be working with both ClimateFast and the Climate Action Network – Canada to spread the word, communicate to the politicians and the media, and to talk with our neighbours and our families about the importance of making this an election issue that all parties must respond to in 2014 or 2015.