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Kairn Carrington

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About Kairn Carrington

Kairn is a life-long environmentalist, trainer and teacher. She was a principal architect in the landmark campaigns to protect the old-growth rainforests of Clayoquot Sound and the Great Bear Rainforest on Canada’s West coast. Since then she has been working to stop the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, developing and implementing climate policy and organizing for climate justice.

Intertwined with her environmental work Kairn has been a student and teacher focused on the intersection of the inner spiritual and emotional realms with the outer ecological and social crises. Kairn has developed a framework for engaging with the climate crisis in a way that enlivens us and calls into deeper relationship with the world around us.

10 Articles

Looking forward on climate, the case for hope amid the heartbreak

Grief is natural when contemplating a future where carbon emissions are not curtailed, but people should never lose hope.
COP26: Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change
Opinion | November 12th 2021
Al Gore at UN climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland

Could we be turning the corner on climate change?

The amazing thing is that if cut to the core message, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg are pretty much saying the same thing at the UN climate conference: The hour is late and we are very far from where we need to be, writes Kairn Carrington.
COP26: Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change
Opinion | November 8th 2021

I want to believe Biden and Trudeau on climate, but some pieces just don't fit

Opinion | November 4th 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi at the COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday. Photos by UNclimatechange / Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Hurry up, please. It’s time

Sometimes it's hard to realize that I am listening to world leaders in Glasgow, rather than some of my colleagues from my old Greenpeace days, writes Kairn Carrington. 
COP26: Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change
Analysis | November 2nd 2021

We need to get good at grieving so we can get good at living

Grief itself is a well-known, well studied human emotion and there is much we have learned from the death and dying process of individuals that can help us navigate this larger ecological grief.
Race to a Safer World
Opinion | June 13th 2019

Meeting the darkness: dealing with your feelings about climate change

How do we be present to the suffering caused by climate change – and not let it overwhelm us, but rather move through it to a place of hope and empowerment?
Race to a Safer World
Opinion | April 18th 2019

Now that the BC Greens hold power, what will they do?

Now, given our rather strange election outcome, it seems that the climate trajectory for the province I love is in his hands.
B.C. Elections 2017
Opinion, Politics | May 16th 2017
Catherine McKenna, Jim Carr, Dominic LeBlanc, Christy Clark, LNG, Petronas, Lelu Island

I watched the Trudeau government at the Paris climate talks. I'm heartbroken by their LNG decision.

I am used to seeing good governments make bad decisions - yet this decision really shook me.
Race to a Safer World
Opinion, Politics | September 28th 2016

Why I celebrate progress over perfection in the struggle for a healthy climate

Opinion, COP21 | December 22nd 2015

In the battle of people vs. pipelines, round one went to the people

Canada's Oilsands
News, Energy | December 6th 2014

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