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I’ve been accused of parroting half-truths and misinformation: well, here are the hard truths that brought me to Alberta in the first place.
For centuries, first nations peoples have been telling non-indigenous people how to live in relationship to the land rather than to see the land and its natural resources as commodities to be exploited. We did not listen and now, here we are, on the edge of a climate cliff.
Like millions of people, I believe we are living an existential crisis, one that humankind has never faced before: If we continue down the current road of fossil fuel dependency, if we expand the problem, climate science is telling us we will soon reach a point of no return.
ven if we do everything needed to make a managed and compassionate transition to a low-carbon economy, climate change that we have already caused will have a dramatic effect. We will experience an escalation in an already severe refugee crisis, experience more forest fires like the one last year that brought such heart-breaking devastation to Fort McMurray, longer droughts, more storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, the disappearance of entire island nations and coastal cities and the extinction of numerous animal and plants species. And that’s a best-case scenario.
At the Paris climate summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came across as a real hero, pledging Canada’s commitment to the treaty goals in no uncertain terms. He also affirmed his government’s commitment to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
For the rest of this opinion column, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/indigenous-reconciliation-will-never-flow-from-a-pipeline/article33646470/