Good Sunday Morning,

"In his new book, Stephen Harper warns that standing up for the environment makes for bad politics, especially in a populist age when parties are looking for the votes of 'ordinary' people." Susan Delacourt quotes a new book entitled Right Here, Right Now: "Political parties, including mine, have won elections just by opposing a carbon tax. The reason is simple. It is ordinary voters who pay carbon taxes."

But Delacourt goes on to point out that "not surprisingly perhaps, Green Party leader Elizabeth May holds exactly the opposite view. In a speech to her party's convention in Vancouver last month, May said ordinary Canadian voters are more than ready to hear the truth about the climate crisis in the 2019 campaign. She intends to build her campaign around the idea that Canadians are ready, even eager, to have politicians telling the truth to them, and climate change is a perfect entry into that discussion.

Good Sunday Morning,

Elizabeth gave us fair warning during last weekend's convention in Vancouver: The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report coming out tonight is going to be bad news.

"It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change — but how close they have brought us to the edge," Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis wrote this in the Washington Post. "And by implication, how much those governments are failing to live up to their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

"1.5 degrees is the most stringent and ambitious goal in that agreement, originally put there at the behest of small island nations and other highly vulnerable countries. But it is increasingly being regarded by all as a key guardrail, as severe climate change effects have been felt in just the past five years — raising concerns about what a little bit more warming would bring.

Yet "it is universally recognized that the pledges made in Paris would lead to a warming far beyond 1.5 degrees — more like 2.5 or 3 degrees Celsius, or even more."

Good Sunday Morning,

There are those who see the future and those who make it happen. It was December of 2016 when Elizabeth introduced me to Tony Seba. I watched his talk, connected the dots, and understood that what he saw was real. I've written about the technological convergence he predicted regularly on this blog but last week, I saw it's power unleashed.

Good Sunday Morning,

It was probably Al Gore that popularized the saying: "It's hard to understand something when your paycheck depends on you not understanding it." Of course our personal morality meter and our need to avoid cognitive dissonance combine to help us rationalize and justify our actions, but this basic human instinct for self preservation nonetheless holds true.

It applied to the purchasing agents at the coal mines that I used to supply with carbide tipped cutters and the engineers at the oil companies that I used to supply with test bits for their offshore exploration on the Grand Banks and Scotian Shelf. But it also applies to NGOs and political parties. In fact it applies to anyone who derives their income, funding or financial resources from an external source, which means pretty much everyone.

The influence does not have to be as overt as the bribes I witnessed in the Cape Breton coal fields or the free booze that flowed for Texas engineers in Halifax bars back in the 1980s. It can be as seemingly benign as being careful not to alienate the lovely people that are paying for the new wing of our library or providing play areas for our children in public hospitals. Funding public services through private donations can be treacherous and the potential for abusive manipulation grows exponentially with the dollar amounts involved.

Good Sunday Morning,

Political conventions can be predictable; hyper-partisan talking points to whip up the base and strive desperately to appear united in solidarity behind a common ideology. Seldom do they dare to explore the realities of our time or unpack the complexity of the issues that face us as a society. Instead they tend to be mired in the perceived safety of the status quo, guided only by the desire of political strategists to strengthen the party brand.

But not all political conventions are created equal. Every once in a while there is a moment in history that compels people to step outside the political norm and face the challenges of our time head on. These moments compel us to reach beyond mere policy proposals, that may or may not ever reach the floor of the House, and embrace opportunity to question our trajectory and speak truth to power.

Good Sunday Morning,

Since the Saanich Fair last weekend, much of my time has been absorbed by working with the Kevin Taft Tour Organizing Team to complete the last minute preparations for this amazing endeavor. Over twenty volunteers send and receive between 10 and 20 emails a day to sort out details ranging from effective promotional strategies, to what plugs are needed to connect laptops to digital projectors. The whole volunteer driven enterprise is probably the most effective volunteer group-think organizational effort I have ever had the opportunity to participate in and support.

Good Sunday Morning,

Elizabeth arrived at the Saanich Fair yesterday and dropped it on the table in front of us with a thump: "Here it is!" The printout of the ruling, already dog-eared and a little crumpled from reading it in its entirety while squeezed into her economy seat on the plane back from New Brunswick, was over an inch thick. Elizabeth had a hard time containing her joy. The thrill of campaigning with David Coon and his fabulous Green Team as they enter the home stretch of their provincial campaign, combined with the court ruling that Elizabeth had long predicted would tie Trudeau's Liberals into a political pretzel, made her positively jubilant.

Good Sunday Morning,

Fifty years ago, in 1968, a study found that global increases in temperature could collapse the West Antarctic Ice Sheet resulting in a catastrophic sea level rise of 11 feet. A year later we landed on the moon and saw the "blue marble" in space for the first time. And although this iconic photograph was not taken until 1972, we celebrated our first "Earth Day" in 1970.

A decade later, in 1979 a US National Academy of Sciences report found that doubling our CO2 levels could increase average global temperatures by 4.5 degrees. It was the year that President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House. And in 1985, studies concluded that global warming may come twice as fast as expected because of a rise of methane and other trace greenhouse gases.

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with the objective to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". Since then, we've had COP after COP and successive governments of all stripes promise that they would act on climate change.

Good Sunday Mourning,

No, that's not a typo. I am in mourning today. In fact, I'm in tears. The Salish Sea is my home. It's the only place on this planet where I feel I truly belong. I have lived in Germany, California, Ontario and Nova Scotia but no place has reached so deeply into my soul. I have drifted on its tides and sailed in its gales. I have watched raccoons scour the beach and crabs scurry through the tide-pools. I have played Mozart to the porpoises as they swam in my bow wave and been surrounded by Orca, waiting patiently, in silence, as they pass me by.

Seventy five percent of all pregnancies in the last two decades have not been viable and it has been four years since any newborn has survived past infancy. The recent images of a grieving mother lifting her dead baby from the depths for eight days were heart wrenching. The baby Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) died a short time after it was born near Victoria, British Columbia on July 24, 2018. The newborn whale was reported alive and swimming with its mother, J35, and other members of J pod near Clover Point on the Victoria shoreline in mid-morning. 

Good Sunday Morning,

Recently, scientists discovered a 'wonderland' of life on a deep-sea mountain off the B.C. coast. The peak is a previously undiscovered extinct volcano deep in the Pacific Ocean. Instead of trees, the ancient forest is made up of red tree corals, and the animals may include numerous species that have never been seen by humans.

While sea life continues to be threatened by ocean acidification, the tide of climate litigation is rising. Citylab reports that the City of Baltimore announced lawsuits against 26 oil and gas companies for damages their fossil-fuel products—and the climate change they’ve compelled—have inflicted on the city. “For 50 years, these companies have known their products would cause rising seas and the other climate change-related problems facing Baltimore today.”