The sky is chiaroscuro. My mind too. Quebec is burning; his aura is menacing. The smoke travels from one end of the province to the other, I see it, I smell it, I feel it when I walk. I am scared.
Quebec is burning, people must be gathered in neighboring communities to save themselves. Anxiety hovers from one cottage to another. In the government, a pledge of $30,000 has just been launched to feed their children, we are told. Meanwhile, food banks are overflowing.
A tree crumbles under the flames. A member rises to support the motion. It is tragically incongruous and indecent.
Quebec is burning and we are told that we cannot compare the work of teachers to that of elected officials. The situation in schools is on a tightrope. The whole educational community is doing an incredible job in an insane context and getting by with so few means. Teachers are struggling in the classrooms, many are trying to impart some form of environmental education, even without a solid framework for this from the ministry.
However, young people want to know in order to understand how to act. The school is the cradle of knowledge, wonderfully well managed by the teachers who do not have a 30% increase. The public sector is however in negotiation, but in the meantime, we glean.
Quebec is burning, but the current of the river remains powerful. So many environmental organizations are making colossal efforts to try to turn the civilizational canoe. For lack of means, many are forced to slow down the pace, although it allows less asphyxiation of the province. I choke.
Quebec is burning and the government announces a caribou protection strategy that authorizes logging in the old (and precious) forests of the Pipmuacan reservoir, the home of the woodland caribou. The Innu community of Pessamit is campaigning for broad protection, but the government is turning a deaf ear. The caribou is in decline, its vital habitat is shrinking, but we are cutting. Quebec’s forest is burning and collapsing, ravaged by logging. I’m suffocating.
“Business as usual”
It pains me to see the forest burning, to see isolated populations being relocated, to see animals in decline, in this sixth mass extinction. It pains me to see Quebec suffering the jolts of the climate crisis, which is not just an environmental crisis, let’s remember, but also a social crisis. It pains me to see the authorities continuing the ” business as usual while all the specialists summon them to act concretely. The narrative needs to change, not just the backstory. It is not by transforming a Hummer into its electric version that the smoke will suddenly rise over Quebec: no. This public appearance borders on insolence.
The time is no longer for blah-blah; this is no longer the time to be indolent. Real effective, meaningful actions are required. And alleged actions decked out in the term “green” only rekindle the embers. Quebec is burning.
I’m afraid we’ll get moving too late, but when I see young people mobilizing, eco-hope lights me up. I will never stop my mobilization. The ashes fall. I believe it.
Climate change is not a business opportunity, Prime Minister. They are the greatest threat to the health of the XXIe century. Quebec is burning, and the urgency to act must ignite us.