“And so now, it is a profoundly pastoral task to acknowledge the worry, the confusion, the paralysis, the fear that congregants carry as they come to realize what we are losing. This is our work,” Mardi reasons. “To not do this work, to not talk about it, is an abdication of pastoral leadership.”

What happens when an energy pipeline developer comes to town? Brandi Morin examines the pressure on a First Nations community in central interior B.C. when Enbridge, with an oil pipeline proposal, and then TransCanada, with the Coastal GasLink project, came calling. Elected Nak’azdli Whut’en Chief Alexander McKinnon relives one of the most difficult decisions of his life.

A proposed permanent radioactive waste dump at Chalk River Laboratories on the Ottawa River raises questions about the future safety of the water used by hundreds of thousands of people. While some local authorities seem relaxed as the proposal winds its way through an environmental assessment process, Ottawa Riverkeeper, for one, remains vigilant about the health of the watershed.

The climate emergency exploded onto the headlines in 2018, with a relentless series of disasters leading up to the UN COP 24 climate conference in December. But the people cutting climate pollution by creating delightful urban spaces on an unprecedented scale should be headline news in 2019.