Planethugger

Because we love this planet…

View of Georgian Bay, from Granite Ridge Trail, Killarney PP/MCM

I just got back from one of my favourite places on the planet, Killarney Provincial Park, Ontario, (see my pic, above). But enjoying hiking in the forest is now definitely tinged with ‘How long can this fragile place survive climate change?’ The trees, unlike Tolkien’s ents, can’t walk to a more suitable spot when it gets hot. We can do things to reverse this trend!

“Our identity includes our natural world, how we move through it, how we interact with it and how it sustains us.”
― David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

Your favourite place? A challenge:

These places are some of the many reasons for us to do everything we can to reverse this climate crisis. Please send me your picture or a note about one of your favourite natural places, either in comments here or as a message, and I will post things in my gallery. Let me know if posting it is okay, and how you would like to be credited for it.

No planet B!

I’m hoping these pictures will inspire and remind us of why we are changing our lives and habits. It’s difficult! These are the places we need to think about every time we do something environmentally-friendly that is inconvenient, difficult, etc…..

No one is too small…

Greta Thunberg’s book, entitled “No one is too small to make a difference” just came out in Canada yesterday. It’s an 80 page collection of her speeches. I’m not reviewing it because I haven’t read it yet, ( going to buy one this afternoon!) but it’s bound to be very motivating. Let us know what you think if you read it!

I AM HERE TO SAY, OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE. […] I WANT YOU TO ACT AS YOU WOULD IN A CRISIS. I WANT YOU TO ACT AS IF OUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE. BECAUSE IT IS.
Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg in front of Swedish parliament//Wikimedia Commons image

This is one amazing young woman! As you may know, in a year she has done a huge amount to get people thinking about the climate emergency. Now she’s planning to travel to North America to deliver her message, and since she doesn’t take planes, she’ll be crossing the Atlantic (without commercial sponsorship) in a sailboat:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/teen-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-will-bring-her-message-to-the-u-s

I will be checking on her schedule to see where she’ll be talking, and let you know.

She has motivated students around the world to demonstrate weekly with her “Fridays for Future”: https://www.fridaysforfuture.org The downtown Toronto protest is weekly on Fridays, https://sites.google.com/view/fridaysforfutureto/home?authuser=0 at midday I think, but they seem to have stopped for the summer. They are, however, ramping up for Greta’s climate strike/global demonstrations, September 20th to 27th. More details on that as they become available. That is very good timing for the Canadian federal election!

Greta, age 16, can be a role model for all of us. This road has not been an easy one for her. Here is an excerpt from a conversation between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (another incredible activist!) and Greta:

AOC I wonder what, to you, is encouraging, and what keeps you going? There’s a school of thought – I personally disagree with it – that says if you educate people too much [about the climate] they’re going to think it’s too late and they’re going to wallow in despair and not act at all. So I’m curious, given how daunting the issue is, why aren’t you so filled with despair that you’re staying on your couch every day, and just waiting for the apocalypse? [Laughs]
GT Before I started school striking, I was like that. I was so depressed and I didn’t want to do anything, basically. But what I find encouraging is having all these people who are fighting on different sides in different ways, to create a better future and to make us avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/29/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-met-greta-thunberg-hope-contagious-climate The Guardian (UK)

(See the above link for the rest of this Skype discussion. VERY interesting!) The more I read and research, the more I hear that the best cure for climate anxiety is to get out there and get involved in the solutions. When an election canvasser comes to our door, we need to ask them questions about their Party’s plan for the climate crisis, and a Green New Deal. And please don’t tell me you don’t go to protests – surely you can make an exception for this issue! (Not that the media give much coverage to protests…) More to come on these issues in future posts.

YOU SAY YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN ABOVE ALL ELSE AND YET YOU ARE STEALING THEIR FUTURE IN FRONT OF THEIR VERY EYES.
Greta Thunberg

Environmental Action: What do we do now?

A brief rant: The future of the planet and all its inhabitants is not an issue where anyone can say it doesn’t concern them. We all live on the planet together, and the worsening situation affects all of us – and will affect us a lot more in the future if we don’t make some big changes now! Let’s use this blog to motivate each other.

The many online lists of things to do to ‘save the planet’, based on my research, have very different priorities. The most common suggestions are huge issues about using less water, eating less meat and dairy, paying attention to garbage and recycling and reducing your carbon footprint. Beyond that, there is an incredible variety of ideas. There are so many actions to take, or do more of, that they become a barrier to doing anything!

What to do?

For this reason, my idea in blogging about this is to just start anywhere – and I suggest you do the same in choosing your next steps. I’ll be covering a broad range of issues here. Give yourself credit for doing what you already do, but we all need to do more – a lot more! Don’t forget that all those small things add up, and there are big things that count for a lot..

“Start anywhere, with whatever is in front of you. The key is to begin – and to trust that as long as you’re putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you’ll get to where you need to, or at the very least, much farther than you had initially imagined.”
Geetanjali Mukherjee

On the Other Hand

We do need to focus not just on what’s ‘doable’ for us or for the government, but what actually must be done in this climate crisis. We need to push ourselves and others to look at some unpleasant realities, and take serious action.

But no judging

No one is perfect. We all have very different lives, meaning that an environmental action which seems to be a no-brainer for one person, is just impossible for some one else, based on factors we can’t know. Plus, figuring out what is the right thing to do can be very complex, and may even change as new perspectives, information, technologies, etc. emerge. Let’s work on this together, and focus on doing more ourselves and in supporting others. And talk to everyone about it. Discussion, comments, suggestions about the blog are not only requested, I’m demanding them!

A Challenge

I’m challenging everyone, including myself, (and everyone in my house!!) to start upping our environmental game right now. Let us know how it goes by commenting here or sending me an email at marjoriemurray63@gmail.com . What are you doing? I’ll pass along whatever responses I get and maybe it will encourage the rest of us.

But – enough of the general

In my next post, we’ll get down to specifics, analyzing different types of environmental actions. Got any ideas, hints, questions? I’ll be doing some research to keep us on the right track.

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Welcome to Marjorie’s Planethugger Blog

Climate anxiety

That’s what I’ve got. Hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods, dead sea creatures stuffed with plastic, cigarette butts on the street that end up in the ocean – so much bad news, and so many terrible predictions for the future. 11 years to turn it around. And I keep having conversations with people who feel guilty, or want to do more to save the planet, but somehow we don’t end up doing a lot.

You are not the only one!

I spent a lot of years teaching my Civics students that what one person does, matters. And now I think we all need reminding – you are not the only one – our individual actions all add up, and can make a real difference. I’ve talked to a number of people lately who don’t know what to do to improve things for the planet, or just don’t think that it matters. So I am here to get us all together and form a community to encourage and support each other in doing more, whatever that means for you. You won’t be the only one taking your own reusable cutlery to the food court, or using a cloth handkerchief – this blog will connect you to lots (I hope!) of others doing the same thing.

If we care about this planet…

…we have to make time to really think about the state of the planet, and our future as part of it. Yes, we are all crazy busy…even retired people like me. But 11 years to make the needed changes is not very much time. And clearly our government is not going to do much unless we force them to! All of the important things that have priority in our lives aren’t going to mean much if the entire planet is falling apart.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. -Max Lucado

And in fact, I think everyone can do more. So – I will be writing this blog to help us all to do better for the planet, as well as do research on related questions, promote discussion, and see what we can do to get the government moving.

I have to say – the planet’s situation is looking like an emergency – but you sure can’t tell that from how all the people on the planet are acting. Let’s change that! So – please subscribe, suggest, comment, and do more!