Guest Blogger - Please welcome Mr. DePaul

This past Saturday was the International Day of Climate Action. And international it was. The world saw individuals attend over 5200 events in 181 countries to demand one thing: that the world’s political leaders commit to an ambitious, fair and binding global climate deal at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen this December.

To show my support, I ventured on bus from my homestead in Montreal to a rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa called “Fill the Hill”. One of the organizers of the rally, a university student named Gracen Johnson, was inspired to form this event after hearing David Suzuki on The Hour say “if you want to get the government to respond to public concern get a hundred thousand [people] in Ottawa.”

The final count of rally attendees will probably be a few heads short of this goal, but the event surely will not go unnoticed. Attendees ranged from university students who were attending Power Shift (Canada’s largest youth conference on climate change), senior citizens, families and young professionals. This diversity of attendees sent an obvious message to the media cameras documenting the event: the climate change issue no longer requires dreadlocks and beards to participate.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May understood this message well. In the 45 seconds speaking slot she was allocated she quickly reminded the audience that this issue is not just a concern for countries threatened by rising sea levels or have limited access to water; the impacts of climate change will be felt right here in Canada, and not just because of our polar bears. The global economy is on the verge of experiencing a mass transition of priorities. As we move away from archaic energy sources—coal and oil—and towards more renewable energy sources, countries that are laggards during this transition and provide niggardly support for growing “green” industries will be left behind.

President Obama gets this. On October 23 Obama delivered a speech at MIT and said "This is the nation that has led the world for two centuries in the pursuit of discovery. This is the nation that will lead the clean energy economy of tomorrow, so long as all of us remember what we have achieved in the past and we use that to inspire us to achieve even more in the future.” He continued, “The nation that wins [this] competition will be the nation to lead the global economy. I'm convinced of that, and I want America to be that nation."

So what is our government’s current opinion on climate change here in Canada? Well...on October 22^nd the Globe and Mail reported that “Environment Minister Jim Prentice says the best chance [for the UN Climate Summit] is for a political agreement that would pave the way for a treaty to be signed later.” Prentice said, “I have to take a realistic view that, given the amount of work that remains to be done, we're running out of time.”

Wow – which SOBs are holding us up Mr. Prentice? These discussions started in 1992, so this desire for more time seems like the work for a bunch of lazy non-progressive countries...I’m sorry? Oh, it’s us? Well at least we didn’t get walked out on by constiuents ..Hmm? We did?! Common Jim!

As The Canadian Press reported on October 12^th at preliminary climate negotiations in Bangkok, “the [Canadian] government's push to abandon much of the Kyoto protocol prompted dozens of developing countries to walk out on Canada's address during recent climate talks in Thailand, The Canadian Press has learned.

“The mass walkout came after the Canadian delegation suggested replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an entirely new global-warming pact, according to one of the negotiators and notes taken by others at the meeting.”

So Canada is the asshole in the group, huh? Doesn’t our government understand that remaining stagnant on this issue will only benefit us in the short term and will likely mortgage our future economy and the well being of future generations, not to mention the disservice we are doing to the thousands of frat kids walking around Europe right now with Canadian flags stitched to their backpacks?

For shame.

Listen though. We have some power in this. Set aside your scepticism in the government process for a moment and believe that you have a voice in the issues that face our country and that that voice gets louder and louder when we coalesce with our friends, family and peers.

We need to make sure that our leaders know that we care about the climate change issue and demand that they act responsibly during the UN Climate Change summit. For starters, let’s get emailing the officials. Don’t be fooled, this helps. Every email you send adds to the count in their inbox of “people who care!”

The David Suzuki Foundation has set up a very simple way to email our four political leaders right here. If this is something you are into, I think it would also make sense to try to convince five of your peers to do the same thing.

Remember, our voice counts, but only if we speak.

Chris

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Many thanks to Chris for this. Happy to finally get him on the blogo, hopefully he'll be back frequently. What did you get up to for the Int'l Day of Planet Loving?