Thanks to organizing efforts by 17-year old Abby Jardine, Fenelon Falls joined other parts of Canada and much of the world in a climate strike September 27.
Rallying at the old Fenelon Falls Theatre marquee sign, about 50 marchers took to Fenelon Falls’ main street to bring attention to the issue of climate change.
Submitted by Jean-Philippe Grenier, CUPW, third national vice president On June 17, 2019, the Canadian government declared a climate emergency, passing a motion through parliament calling climate change a “real and urgent crisis, driven by human activity.”
This should shock no one. We already know that our country is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world and that it is becoming increasingly difficult for our planet to breathe.
Words are not enough. They are meaningless without action. The federal government must walk the talk, starting with its largest Crown Corporation, Canada Post.
During the week of June 24, Kawartha Lakes Environmental Advisory Committee recognized students across the municipality for their exemplary efforts toward enhancing and protecting the environment in the current school year (2018 to 2019). A total of three awards were presented to students ranging from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 7.
The first Environmental Youth Hero award was presented to Alexis Benns, a Grade 7 student at Central Senior Public School, who was nominated for her efforts in raising awareness on climate change by organizing community marches. Alexis felt compelled to take action on her own because of her recent studies of the impacts that climate change is having on the environment. On March 15 and May 3, Ms. Benns was able to organize two marches that involved not only students from multiple schools within the area, but members of the community as well.
In 1946 George Orwell, the writer of 1984 wrote in his seminal Politics and the English Language that, “When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases … one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy, the appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain his not involved.”
But who is this Orwell? He probably took courses at university that were not tied to ‘performance outcomes’! He merely warned generations of the dangers of totalitarianism. Clearly not a man who was ‘open for business.’
How much do you know about climate change and how it’s affecting us here in the City of Kawartha Lakes? Test yourself by taking this quiz, based on a presentation made to council by Deb Pearson and Ginny Colling, members of the Kawartha Lakes Environmental Advisory Committee who’ve taken on climate change education as their mission.
Note: For some questions there may be more than one correct answer. Answers (and some explanations of the connections to climate change) are at the end.
I am increasingly being asked to speak to people about hope. This is not surprising. Given the decline of the insects that are drivers of our food system, the loss of the birds that keep dangerous insects in check, and the fact that it will soon be too hot for our food to germinate and grow, we are really in need of some hope. If the conversation has truly shifted from climate change to climate catastrophe, how can we possibly live in hope? In the face of so much death, where is hope found?
