Tonight I’m not able to sleep because I’m in pain. I hurt for my planet, I hurt for my house, I hurt for helplessness.
Winter began and I tried to temper my worry by telling myself that the snow would come along with the cold. The days and weeks pass, this winter in my city, I have only been able to count a few days of beautiful snow, only one day to go sliding. I was so looking forward to winter to introduce it to my newly immigrant friends and my niece who is discovering life.
I look at the weather, this week it was 10 degrees. As someone who loves spring, I cannot rejoice in it or take full advantage of it, because it is too early. I sadden myself by telling myself that the good old phrase which is reborn every spring from generation to generation, “in April don’t discover yourself by a thread”, is also on the verge of disappearing… to make way for an “in February we tan our buttocks.”
Some people around me look at me with big round eyes when I share my feeling of not having had a good winter (another symptom of the degradation of our environment): “Well no, let’s see! It’s perfect like that, it’s not cold! It’s a beautiful winter! » they answer me. For fifteen years I have said to myself “do your best, life must go on, you cannot stop your life to save the planet”.
So, I travel by public transport, by bike, I eat vegetarian, I try to buy as much as possible in bulk (even if all the zero waste grocery stores in my neighborhood are dropping like flies), I only buy What i need. I continue even though I know the problem is bigger than me, like the little prince who will never give up caring for his planet.
In my bed, eyes wide with concerns and an ardent desire to find a way to make our distress heard, my heart beats with urgency and injustices, but I know that this is not new and that I do not I’m not the first. There are billions of us shouting “emergency”. I wonder what I can do so that a state of emergency is finally declared by our governments; go on a hunger strike, go to the streets to campaign, write articles, make documentaries, climb bridges, stop working, stop going to school! ? !
Others did it before me and I admire their commitments: Greta Thunberg, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Mothers at the Front, more than 500,000 people at the climate march on September 27, 2019 (only) in Montreal, indigenous communities who protect their land, the mental health of environmental activists who are deteriorating, citizens who create eco-responsible projects, Nothing Dashing Cowboys, Together by Jay Scott, “Nature according to Boucar”, documentaries like The Earth seen from the heartorganic fruit lands, projects and research to counter ecological disasters, reports that describe the inequalities and dangers caused by climate change, activists who climb bridges hoping that it will be big enough for the we make ourselves heard, and so on!
There is no shortage of creativity everywhere on the planet. What do you have to do to have the surgery and get out of the house that drives Asterix and Obelix crazy: The twelve labors of greenwashing? I feel like it’s like we have a leg cut in two and we constantly have to go to the doctor to convince him to perform emergency surgery. The evidence is there. Take action. We no longer have to prove ourselves.
You were able to declare a state of emergency for COVID-19, putting the entire world on pause. Businesses and governments, you are capable of saving us. Scientists say there is only a tiny opening left in the door to save us from a tragic global doom. It is a fragile ember of hope, but big enough to put your foot down to save what is most precious to us: the improbable existence of our terrestrial ecosystem in this vast cosmos.
Perhaps for you, these are just words, futile actions, a spectacle that barely touches your comfort. So, I can only wish you compassion towards yourself and towards others.
Declare a state of climate emergency. Take radical action. This year. Because what’s the point of greed and consumerism if it’s going to end up like Jonah Hill in the movie? Cosmic denial (Don’t look up) ?