Social equity vital to plan, activists say
Sign says: “For our common home.”
When the “panic” about climate change set in for Katie Wilson, it was with her family in mind.
She knew about scientists’ warning to limit global warming to 2C (later revised to 1.5 C) or risk hitting “the tipping point.”
As a 17-year-old high school student, she was concerned about her own future.
Then she thought about her baby niece.
Climate change “matters to me, because ... I’m an aunt, I’m a daughter, I’m a friend,” said Wilson, now 22.
“These things matter to me because it’s personal,” she says.
“It affects me and it affects the people that I love and it affects the things that I interact with every day.”
Through her involvement with Mother Earth Justice Advocates (MEJA), the young Regina woman is working on building relationships.
MEJA is planning a town hall gathering for January in Regina, to get people together in food and conversation.
Reason being, said Wilson, “at the end of the day, we can’t just be this terrible species that came in as a tornado, ripped through everything and then we were gone. You know what I mean? Like, let’s try and have relationships with one another.”
Wilson also recognizes that there are hurdles to getting people involved in the discussion.
She used to wonder, “How come I’m not seeing more Indigenous people at these strikes or these marches?” But even within her own family, she sees challenges, including addiction.
“The big question is like, how do we bridge that? That’s still something that I’m trying to figure out,” added Wilson.
“A big part of it is understanding people and seeing someone as a person, and not just as a symptom of a bigger problem.”
Automobiles account for 22 per cent of Saskatchewan’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the provincial government, which encourages public transit.
But, there are quite a few citizens who are already taking public transit, because they can’t drive or can’t afford a car.
Some can’t even afford the bus. When Emily Eaton led focus groups this summer on the subject of sustainability in Regina, “This idea of universal fare-free public transit was really, really popular.”
There were 39 organizations represented, including emergency shelters, multicultural organizations, senior citizens’ groups, youth groups, food security and income assistance agencies.
Specifically, the focus groups considered the City of Regina’s mission to be totally powered by renewable energy by 2050.
To include households in that, “There’s only a certain type of person that, given a small incentive or rebate or whatever, can actually take up the costs associated with transition,” said Eaton, an associate professor in geography and environmental studies at the University of Regina.
Not everyone can afford to install solar panels on their home. Not everyone can afford to retrofit their home. Some don’t have a home.
“And so we were really interested in what kinds of investments could the city make first, that actually benefit people who’ve been marginalized …,” said Eaton.
One idea was to transition public housing to be more sustainable. There was discussion around making public transit and public spaces safer. Job security was a concern among labour unions at the table, some of which represented oil and gas industry workers.
Eaton said it’s imperative to engage everyone in addressing climate change, which requires “truly extraordinary” transformation.
“Historically, the environmental movement has been quite white, quite middle class, quite privileged,” said Eaton.
To effect real change, “poor people, people who’ve been marginalized, Indigenous communities have to see that this is going to benefit them. … And if people can come together around environmental issues as also seeing their own interests benefiting from those, the outcomes can be quite powerful.”
Wilson sees climate justice as inherently linked Indigenous justice.
“For Indigenous people, we never believed that we owned the land and it was always ‘we are one with the land … we are stewards of the land,’” said Wilson.
“The kind of world we live in now, the mindset is ownership and the mindset is, ‘How can we profit from resources? How can we make money off of this?’ And so when we look at climate change, and where we are, it’s a result of colonialism.”
Sue Deranger, a MEJA founder, echoed that sentiment at the Sept. 27 climate strike.
“When we think about what we need to do, first and foremost, Indigenous rights need to be protected,” said Deranger, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
She urged people to remember the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People, of which Article 26 reads in part: “States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources (traditionally owned or used by Indigenous peoples).”
Added Deranger: “We have to stop thinking about human supremacy. What about the finned ones, the winged ones? What about the fourlegged? What about them?”
Considering others goes beyond our local communities. Climate change is a global issue.
“It’s a collective action problem,” said economist Brett Dolter. “We need to act as a province, as a country and as a global community to deal with it. And it’s unique in that way. It’s not like smog, where you can clean up smog in Regina and it doesn’t matter if there’s smog in Toronto. (With carbon emissions), it matters what happens in Toronto.”
For more than a few people leaving social media comments with the Leader-post, Toronto isn’t the problem — it’s everybody else.
“We are one of the least problematic countries. They should walk their way down to China and rally there!!!” Cory Ouellette wrote about the Regina climate strikes.
“If every city in Canada completely stopped emissions the global impact would be negligible,” Ron Nowlan posted.
Roger Petry calls that “bad reasoning.”
“You could use that argument anywhere. Just take a small enough unit. And then it’s like, ‘Well, then it’s nobody’s responsibility,’” said Petry, a philosophy professor and co-ordinator of the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development in Saskatchewan.
“There is always the first person who said, ‘Oh, slavery is wrong,’ ” added Petry.
“And if they said, ‘Oh, I’m the only one person against slavery and my selling my slaves is not going to do anything ’ — well, actually, it did do something. And people are social animals, and if they see countries that traditionally have ethical leadership showing moral leadership, that’s a huge strength in the global system.”
Per capita, Canada has a larger carbon footprint than more populous countries, including China.
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2014 accounted for 1.6 per cent of the world’s emissions, China’s 26 per cent, the United States’ 13.9 per cent, and India’s 6.7 per cent, according to World Resources Institute data, via the Canadian government website.
Meanwhile, Canada’s population was 38.5 times smaller than China’s, almost 37 times smaller than India’s and almost nine times smaller than the U.S.’S.
In consideration of global citizenship, Margot Hurlbert questions the “fairness” of expecting other countries “to live at less of a standard of living than what we have in Canada, because we expect more from them on climate change than we expect from ourselves.
“It becomes difficult to justify our inaction when we’re trying to compare ourselves to other areas of the world, and it becomes a very deep ethical discussion around what is a common but differentiated responsibility,” added Hurlbert, Canada research chair in Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability Policy.
The young people involved in the local climate strikes have not argued for idleness while shifting the blame to other countries. They are global citizens. It’s why, in landlocked Saskatchewan, they care about sea levels rising.
“My life is on the line. Why would I not care about other people as well?” said North Hunter, 21.
“I am watching people worldwide face hunger and having to migrate because of the climate crisis that is striking them. I am seeing people die and I do not want that to happen to people around me.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spelled out the importance of keeping global warming within 1.5 C of pre-industrial temperatures.
“If we get above two degrees of global warming, it means like 100 million or more of the population becomes at risk of hunger (globally),” said Hurlbert, an author of the IPCC’S special report.
“Even locally, like our Prairie droughts of 1999 to 2004, they were about $6 billion in our economy, and the summer flood of 2014 is about $1.5 billion. So it’s really starting to impact us not only as citizens of Saskatchewan, but as global citizens as well,” Hurlbert added.
Petry cited the United Nations’ sustainable development goals as a “checklist:” it covers 17 areas, including poverty, hunger, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, and climate action.
“We might not agree how to implement things, but we certainly can agree that we don’t want a world with poverty and we don’t want a world with hunger. There’s none of those goals that you can read and get rid of because they’re all fundamentally important,” said Petry.
At a time when “so many countries are not showing ethical leadership,” Petry said Canada could set itself apart as a leader to inspire others.
Poor people, people who’ve been marginalized, Indigenous communities have to see that this is going to benefit them.