Suzuki rallies climate troops

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Speaking at the 100% Possible climate rally in Ottawa, environmentalist David Suzuki — who spent part of his childhood in a Japanese internment camp during World War II — compared the climate crisis to fighting a battle for survival.

“We need to sustain the metaphor of a war – because that’s what it is. The urgency of this struggle is like a war. You see, when a war begins – as it did when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 – nobody said, ‘Oh my God, this will destroy the economy. We can’t afford to fight back.’ There was only one choice. There was no choice. We had to fight and we had to win... and that’s where we’re at today,” said Suzuki.

Suzuki delivered his fiery message before a crowd of peaceful, good-natured crowd of protestors calling for 100 per cent renewable energy usage by 2050.

According to climate march organizer Sidney Ribaux, Canada’s climate commitments are not strong enough, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of federal support for renewable power development.

“We’re hoping especially for Canada to commit to significant sums of money to help Third World countries come out of this climate crisis,” said Ribaux. "[The Liberal government] has already committed partial sums to but we’re hoping for more."

On Nov. 26 the Canadian government pledged $2.65 billion towards climate mitigation aid for poorer countries. It’s money that can be used to help develop renewable energy worldwide as well as pay for infrastructure needed to handle severe weather or rising sea levels.

But more mitigation funding would allow both Canada and other nations to take a proactive rather than reactive approach to global warming and the flood of climate refugees that many are predicting will happen.

If global warming is allowed to continue unchecked, up to 200 million people could be uprooted by 2050.

“We’ve seen with the Syrian issue what the impact of refugees coming out of a country can be. Obviously every report that’s coming [from] scientists that have looked at this is showing that the climate issue will be creating more and more of these refugees,” said Ribaux.

But reaching the 100 per cent renewables target may be easier than it appears: Ribaux told National Observer that clean power already accounts for 30 per cent of Canada's energy output.

Chapter 1

A planet fit for our children

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Standing in front of a massive crowd gathered on Parliament Hill, a young girl asked people to imagine a world without global warming. She asked the crowd to imagine a future world where polar bears could continue to thrive in the Arctic, where rising sea levels wouldn't put entire countries at stake.

In short, a world fit for children like 10-year old Rebecca Taylor to live in.

“Imagine a world where kids are kids and don’t have to worry about climate change. A world where weather is fun. Not scary," she said.

"Where the rain falls gently on the ground, where Christmas will always be white – where it could be white. Where the water is clean and clear and waiting for you to jump in and have fun. We are lucky that we still have so many of these things in Canada. Children all over the world should have these things,” Taylor said, to roaring applause.

Rebecca Taylor speaks. (Photo: Fram Dinshaw).

"We must turn to the sun, wind, and water for energy," she said, urging the audience to bike, scoot, walk, and use any other transport that did not involve burning fossil fuels. Her speech echoed the Global Climate March's demand for 100 per cent renewable energy worldwide by 2050.

“We children are the future and we do not have a plan B or for that matter a planet B. If we work together it is 100 per cent possible that we will cool it for the sake of all living things, big and small, young and old, who do live and will live on our beautiful Earth," Taylor said.

But children around the world remain on climate change’s front line, as millions live in countries facing not only rising sea levels but also floods, hurricanes, and extreme droughts brought about by changing weather patterns.

It was one such severe drought that struck Syria from 2006-10, destroying huge swaths of farmlands and pushing one million migrants into cities already crowded with Iraqi war refugees. The lack of affordable food, coupled with dissatisfaction with political oppression, sparked a brutal civil war that broke out in 2011 and has now killed between 200,000 – 300,000 people. Roughly 20 per cent of those killed are children.

“It makes feel me sad to think that children like me are not getting the life [that] they deserve,” Taylor said.

Young people at the climate rally talked about transitioning off fossil fuels as a way not only to save the planet, but also create new jobs.

“I’m a member of the younger generation that we’re always talking about. I am 23 years old and next year and I’m going to graduate university into a job market that is the least friendly to young people in Canada’s history. We deserve a government that’s going to invest in its young people, going to invest in our planet, and provide green jobs in this country,” said university student Anna Kubinsky.

“We are part of history today. We are turning a page in the next chapter of the climate justice movement, one that will see victory, one that will see a green economy in our lifetimes,” said Kubinsky.

Chapter 2

Fighting to preserve the Arctic

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For Jerry Natanine, the fight for 100 per cent renewable energy is more urgent than ever. He is Mayor of Clyde River on Baffin Island, where local Inuit hunt and fish for their food in Canada’s vast polar expanses.

But mayor Natanine's once-pristine homeland is being ravaged by climate change, as rising temperatures melt away both glaciers and summer sea ice.

The warmer weather endangers animals such as narwhals, bowhead whales, ringed seals, and polar bears. The animals provide food for Inuit hunters and their products also form the basis of Clyde River’s economy.

Map showing Clyde River's location in Canada. (Credit: Natural Resources Canada).

“It’s affecting our hunters,” said Natanine. “Climate change is bringing mercury and other pollutants up north.”

Troubled by the vanishing way of life in his home community, Natanine came to Ottawa on Nov. 29 to spread awareness of the impacts of climate change to Canada's capital.

When asked what he would say to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Natanine replied:

“I would tell him that 100 per cent renewable energy in Canada is possible, and to push for that."

But climate change is by no means the only danger for Clyde River. Last month, the tiny community commenced legal action with the Supreme Court of Canada in a bid to stop oil companies from carrying out exploratory seismic drilling on Baffin Island.

A fjord on Baffin Island looking east towards the Davis Strait, an area of shoreline now endangered by seismic drilling for oil. (from Wikimedia Commons).

Seismic drilling is carried out using underwater blast cannons to blast open rocks, but the shockwaves generated can wreak havoc with both marine mammals and the Inuit communities that rely on them for food. Powerful shockwaves from blast guns can injure, kill or disrupt the navigation patterns of animals such as whales.

“Seismic blasts are loud — in fact, they're the second loudest man-made sound ever created, second only to the atomic bomb," said Jessica Wilson, head of Greenpeace Canada’s Arctic campaign last month.

"[The blasts are] up to and sometimes over 260 decibels below the surface, which is eight times louder than a jet engine heard 50 metres away on land. Sounds at this level can burst human ear drums, but whales are much more sensitive to sounds than we are.”

With a way of life unchanged for millennia now under threat, the Inuit people of Baffin Island are very much on the front lines of climate change and stand to be directly affected by any deal that comes out of Paris.