Mobilizations that are being hailed as "the first steps towards a new kind of climate movement" will take place across Canada this weekend, bringing together an "unprecedented coalition" of environmental, labor, social justice, public health, and student activists to call for a justice-based transition to a clean energy future.
I live in Saskatoon, Canada. And “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” (You may remember the movie “Network.”)
Even at 70, I’m not too old to have my “boots on the street.” Which I will tomorrow. Our world climate is a mess, and I want there to be a liveable planet for my grandchildren (currently aged 11 and 9)! I’m not opposed to sound, sustainable, healthy (for humans and the earth) business. But the Tar Sands are not that safe or healthy. We have to do better, and I believe we can!
SHALL I INTRODUCE YOU TO THE WIND?
Everything will change:
the word and the rock
the river and the tree.
Everything will be moved:
the corn and the dragonfly
the music and the grass.
What has been wasted
will return, a huge flight
will open the seed.
I will not wait
the cold seeps into the warm
the fire seethes across the taiga.
We wait for seasons
and they betray our want,
thighs clenched in terror
rape of the great Manitous
across the empty miles
where waters consume
the mountain and mountains
shed their blankets
like matchsticks
in the whipping
of the great rivers of air.
This is the great change
we may not be allowed to stay
erect in it
stones standing
heroes torn from our ribs.
Let me introduce you
to the wind
our grandchildren may not see
the heron, the heron
may not roost
where there once were trees.
This is not a drill
the sirens do not sleep in our dreams
we know what will go missing
the fault lines widen
in the country of our great thirst.
A lot of fires still burning out of control — with a lot of smoke. More people being evacuated ahead of the fires in Sakatchewan; probably in other places, too. Thousands being housed in Saskatoon indoor soccer centre — many others with family elsewhere. Red Cross working hard. At lease one First Nation has been totally obliterated — one person said it kinda looked like Hiroshima after the Bomb. Smoke not so bad in Saskatoon — must be drifting in another direction.
People are connecting the dots and realizing the problem is the system and the current system must go. Step one ‘a’ is for Canadians to be building the movement and creating the framework for the replacement. Step one ‘b’ is for Canada is that Harper and his cronies must go.
