Instead of taking stock of the environmental crises and acting accordingly, political decision-makers are living in “denial,” laments Laure Waridel. The co-founder of the organization Mères au front will therefore take part in a mobilization on the occasion of Mother’s Day this weekend, in order to advocate for the urgency of taking the necessary measures to protect nothing less than the lives of children.
“We all agree on the need to protect our children, and Mother’s Day is the celebration of those who take care of children and who give life. We therefore want this to be an opportunity to remember that to take care of children, we must do it collectively, which requires protecting the environment and taking care of living things. Health, safety and quality of life depend on the quality of our environment,” explains the ecosociologist, author and co-founder of Équiterre in an interview with THE Duty.
However, Laure Waridel’s observation is clear: “This message is clearly not sufficiently heard”, she affirms, recalling the warning launched this week by hundreds of international scientists who believe that climate change is leading to the planet towards a warming of at least 2.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. A situation that would literally make the world “unrecognizable”.
Mères au front, which has members in different regions of Quebec, therefore wishes to challenge the population, but also political decision-makers through gatherings over the weekend, including a show bringing together several well-known artists, under the artistic direction of Brigitte Poupart, at Frédérick-Back Park in Montreal on Sunday.
“Many people feel helpless,” notes M.me Waridel, citing the worsening of multiple environmental crises, such as global warming, the decline of biodiversity or the impacts of pollution such as that caused by the Horne foundry, in Rouyn-Noranda. This growing feeling of helplessness and “fatigue” among the Quebec population emerges from the most recent edition of the Climate Action Barometer, a project led by researchers from Laval University.
“But we can and we must send a strong message to elected officials, otherwise the situation will be even worse,” underlines the one who is very critical of the action of governments, despite the abundance of scientific knowledge which demonstrates the urgency of to act.
“I think they are deeply in denial of the scale of the climate crisis and the urgency with which they must tackle it,” asserts Laure Waridel bluntly, citing in particular the delays of Quebec and Canada in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “It is not in 10 years or 20 years that we will suffer disasters. We are already facing them and we know that they will increase very quickly. »
Responsibility
Climate science is indeed clear: global warming is not about to slow down, much less be stopped. This trajectory should also lead to an increase in extreme climatic events, declines in food security and population health, climatic migrations, rising ocean levels and an acceleration in the decline of biodiversity.
In this context, “elected officials must assume the responsibility of acting now and in a much more ambitious manner”, even if it means displeasing them. “Tackling the environmental crisis would involve profound societal changes, particularly in our ways of producing and consuming. But a government that pushed for these changes would necessarily be unpopular, because there is a natural resistance to change. »
Mme Waridel cites as an example the need to move towards “material and energy sobriety” which is still lacking, but also to transform our diet and our agricultural practices, to review land use planning marked by urban sprawl and to operate a major shift in the field of transport.
However, we are still very far from implementing such transformations. “If our elected officials were less in denial and showed more lucidity, they would make environmental action a real priority. And the implications in our societies would be immense. But the vision of our governments at the moment is very technological. We do not question the causes of environmental problems. We focus on technological solutions, while pressing the accelerator of destruction. »
Laure Waridel, however, affirms that Mothers at the Front intends to continue these calls for action, on behalf of younger generations and those to come: “We still have a very short-term vision of the well-being of our children. We also need to take care of the basics of life on Earth. »