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As calls to action go, Climate Action Team Manitoba’s first climate jam got off to a resounding start Saturday.
"You can see there’s a diverse group here. We’ve got young people, the retirement set, students, professionals, environmentalists. That’s encouraging," said organizer Curt Hull as he surveyed the sold-out crowd of 150 people packed into the University of Winnipeg’s downtown Richardson College for the Environment with a sense of satisfaction.
Hull is a project manager for Climate Change Connection, one of half a dozen non-profit agencies and community organizations that formed a coalition to organize the event, dubbed Peg City Climate Jam, Resilience on the Red.
The day featured more than half a dozen workshops to discuss what happens if the world fails to rise to the climate change challenge and how to prod Canadian politicians into taking action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"The intention of this event is awareness," Hull said. "There’s an understanding of climate change as an issue but there is not as clear an understanding of what action people can take and need to take. An event like this allows people to discuss actions they can take."
The event was wrapped around the warnings issued by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in October. The exhaustive document concluded the world had 12 years left to come to terms with global warming of 1.5 C or court the consequences in extreme weather events, floods, fires, droughts and poverty.
"This is an issue that affects all of us," Hull said.
In addition to Hull’s Climate Change Connection, the other organizations behind the forum included the Green Action Centre, the Wilderness Committee, Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba, and the Manitoba Eco Network Water Caucus.
"Climate change is happening much faster than previously predicted," warned the print on stacks of pledge sheets and petitions addressed to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman. They asked all levels of government to declare a climate change emergency and adopt measures to stabilize global warming to within the 1.5 C cap.
A list of to-do’s probed lifestyle adjustments from bulk food store shopping with your own cloth bags and putting on a sweater before turning up the heat to selling the family car, joining the Peg City Car Co-op and limiting vacations outside of Manitoba to once a year.
Molly McCracken says people need to prepare for change without leaving anyone behind.
Clayton Thomas-Muller, an organizer with environmental advocacy group 350.org, as well as a media producer and a member of the northern Manitoba Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Pukatawagan, served as the event’s MC.
The role of the Indigenous people could be key to finding a route through the maze that a resource-rich country such as Canada is caught in right now, Thomas-Muller said.
"First Nations in this country, our fight to protect our lands and natural resources against Canada’s economic paradigm places us in a crazy, crazy geopolitical position, at the whims of Russia, China, the United States, the superpowers and their thirst for energy. We have an impact on that," Thomas-Muller said.
"Going through an intense process like that? And redesigning our economy. It’s good to have some know-how, some applied knowledge and that’s where I think Indigenous people sit in the forefront as a force for reconciliation and climate change. We’re the least removed from the natural world… literally a generation, in most cases, from our traditional way of life."
As a child, Thomas-Muller remembers dogs sleds were the way he got around. He remembers the shift to a more consumer society, too.
"I remember when my uncle got his first Ski-Doo. He was the richest Indian on earth because he had a motorized dog sled," Thomas-Muller recalled.
"The role of Indigenous knowledge is we have the how-to of how to take care of ecosystems, and we have a connection with the sacredness of place… People want to be connected to the sacredness of the place where they live… and Indigenous people, our worldview and our cosmology, is exactly that connection we’re able to facilitate (for others)," the climate campaigner said.
No surprise then that Thomas-Muller told the forum this is the first of several leading up to the federal election expected to be called for October.
"We were very concerned with the IPCC report that came out," said forum co-organizer Molly McCracken, director of the think-tank Centre for Policy Alternatives. "In Manitoba, preparing for the future will mean new infrastructure and alternatives to the use of fossil fuels," she said.
"We’re focusing on food, shelter and transportation, how do we move ourselves around, how do we heat our homes, how do we feed ourselves and how do we preserve the natural world around us," she said.
"Resilience on the Red is about resilience. It means preparing for change in a way that doesn’t leave anybody behind," McCracken said.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
Alexandra Paul
Reporter
Alexandra is a veteran news reporter who has covered stories for the Winnipeg Free Press since 1987. She held the medical beat for nearly 17 years, and today specializes in coverage of Indigenous-related issues. She is among the most versatile journalists on the paper’s staff.
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