Icy winter is a cold comfort

As we should all know by now, weather does not equal climate, and it’s important to remember that the frigid winter we’ve been skating, snowshoeing, delighting in, and suffering through this year (this milder week notwithstanding) does nothing to diminish the existential threat of the human-driven climate crisis.

Yet the leaders whose job it is to keep emissions in check have once again dropped the ball - or, more aptly, the globe - in a rush to tend to priorities that just won’t seem important when coastal cities and communities are underwater.

Sadly, when the next election is the highest priority of political leaders (which is always), long-term needs fall by the wayside, no matter how important they are, if they become the least bit inconvenient.

Enter the Canadian Climate Institute study published last Friday, which reveals the country is set to miss all of its climate targets to reduce emissions. Whether you’re talking 2026, 2030 (the Paris Agreement commitment), or 2050, Canada’s not expected to keep its promises or its moral obligations when it comes to the planet.

Justin Trudeau signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of Canada in 2016, ushering in a landmark global climate deal that promised bold action to achieve a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2030.

At the time, the country’s budget office said the economy would be affected, yes, but not substantially. But in the capitalist fever dream we’re living in, that was apparently too steep a cost.

Good intentions are fine and dandy, but without a plan, are they even really intentions?

Yes, Canada set aggressive emissions-cutting targets to combat climate change, but you’re not going to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle without even hitting the gym.

Caring for the environment is a core Kanien’kehá:ka value, but in colonial society, despite waves of greenwashing that ebb and flow, it has always been unpopular. Environmentalists have always gotten a bad rap as tree-huggers or bleeding hearts, getting in the way of “progress” with their petty concerns.

Nothing has changed since Dr. Seuss weighed in; the ones who speak for the trees are still sent packing because everybody needs a thneed.

It’s pretty much the name of the game right now, and it has been for a long time: profits now, everything else later.

It’s always something, it seems. Right now, with the US flailing and walloping anything that gets in its way, Canada is trying to get on stable economic footing. At what cost?

You name it; stomping on Indigenous rights and throwing environmental concerns by the wayside are just another day at the office. But as well all know, shrugging off First Nations and climate worries was Canada’s modus operandi long before Trump 2.0.

Canada is the worst in the G7 when it comes to cutting emissions, but at least it’s taboo to just downright deny the existence of climate change here, even if it’s getting more popular to pay it lip service while enacting policies that just make things worse.

The second-worst country on the list, the US, is still the king of climate denialism, meanwhile, and still harbouring an awful lot of power even as its reputation nosedives. Incidentally, that country tore up its copy of the Paris Agreement in Trump’s first term and again in the second after Biden taped it back together in between.

If Canada has thrown in the towel on carbon reduction goals with its policy moves, the US has soaked the towel in kerosene and thrown it in the fire, and pollution knows no border.

As we contend with the predictable news that Canada has proven to be an utter failure in the climate change department, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), perhaps the most famous climate regulator in the world, declared last week that it was reversing a 2009 policy called the Endangerment Finding, which simply noted that greenhouse gas emissions are a threat to public health.

This was the justification for all kinds of positive climate actions, which is why the White House bragged that its decision to revoke it was the “largest deregulation in American history.”

In fact, this is what the head of the EPA said: “Referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’ the Endangerment Finding is now eliminated.”

It’s no surprise this guy was appointed by a president who last week eagerly accepted a trophy designating him the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”

Beautiful Clean Coal - propaganda isn’t even trying anymore, even if sadly it’s proving as effective as ever.

Climate change shouldn’t be an excuse to sell you bottles of water with 15 percent less plastic. Sweeping changes are needed. Putting responsibility on the individual who is weary, tired, broke, and hardly has a choice anyways is a sneaky trick wrought by corporate polluters and the politicians they prop up, which is why the government’s actions are so crucial.

But, as individuals and communities, we do have a duty.

It can be overwhelming. After all, these depressing developments come as we worry about alleged toxic dumping on a local level, with Ste. Catherine’s issues coming on the heels of Chateauguay’s, and nobody asking Kahnawake about putting industrial facilities there in the first place.

Canadians need to show their politicians that thinking about the next election and protecting the planet from burning can go hand in hand, and that means, frankly, that many Canadians need to embark on a realignment of their values that looks further into the future than their own retirement.

The Onkwehón:we of Turtle Island have set an example and led the way countless times when it comes to protecting Mother Earth, from standing up for the Pines, to Idle No More, to Wet’suwet’en land defenders, to everyday examples like promoting medicine walks, so the next generation will be in touch with traditional values when it comes to the natural world.

That must continue to be the case. We don’t need a thneed, but we do need to heed the call to treat the trees, and the ones who deliver that call, with admiration and respect. Without the ones who value something more sacred than money, we’re all doomed.

TED Staff