Multiple pathways can lead us to climate action
“We need courage, not hope, to face climate change. But the scale of climate change engulfs even the most fortunate. Courage is the resolve to do well without the assurance of a happy ending.” Kate Marvel, climate scientist Our determination to set in motion a community-based ecological transformation can be discovered in a plethora of ways. The arts, farming, meditation, a liberal arts education, scientific avenues, religious practices and political conversations are all possible entry points to discussions that include Nature as our focal point. On June 13 I attended a two-hour gathering in Sherbrooke’s Baobab Café community space facilitated by Observatoire estrien du développement des communautés [OEDC](Eastern Townships Signpost for Community Development), a nonprofit organization that has been engaged with our population since 2006. [https://oedc.qc.ca] The first of a series of workshops, the gathering brought together people of all ages to better understand the direction our community is striving for. Through a series of fifteen multiple-choice questions, each with three or four possible responses, we were asked what we collectively need to drive the values of our societies. Do we remain in an technocratic, capitalist, anthropocentric sphere, or do we transition towards a more democratic, social justice focused, ecocentric community? OEDC wishes to help its members, both individuals and organizations, to ferry themselves along that transition. After two hours it was very clear that the Township citizens wanted to initiate actions that were firmly tethered to an ecocentric transition. We need to examine our role in this dangerous age of advancing climate breakdown and biodiversity loss and accelerating pollution. At the end of the workshop we discussed briefly local questions such as “Are we aware of the ecological issues in Sherbrooke?” Although I found some of the questions and particularly the answer options to be too vague, limited and overlapping, this was the first community meeting and I would expect future conversations to delve more deeply into collective actions that urgently need to be taken if, as they suggest, a “better way of life” is to be achieved. Although we wore name stickers, there was not enough time to get to know the other people present, or to discuss the questions in depth: that will come in future workshops. But what was abundantly clear was that OEDC got 35 strangers together and wish to help foster collective action. Tragically, it is also clear that Nature activists around the world are being relegated to the sidelines in the quest by governments, corporations, institutions and individuals to grab more extractive resources to the extreme detriment of Nature and non-western societies. By pushing at a feverish pace, corporations sing the praises of consumerism, but by in doing so they are sending democracy into a downward spiral that will undeniably place many of the promising achievements to protect Nature in utter jeopardy. This is not a harbinger of prosperity, but a death wish. Trump, Putin and company have made no secret of the fact that they wish to dismantle decades of protection. Even in