Last month, the United Nations announced that the year 2024 would “very likely” be the hottest year in history — thus beating the record set in 2023. Already, the data for the first months of year are very worrying. We felt it clearly in southern Quebec, we hardly experienced any winter.
And yet, on Sunday, there were only a few hundred people gathered in Montreal for the Earth Day march. The last major climate mobilization to somewhat disrupt the hum of the news cycle dates back to 2019, when half a million people took to the streets of Montreal alongside Greta Thunberg.
2019 is before the pandemic. Might as well say in the old days. Of course, there are always significant environmentalist mobilizations across the country. But we are experiencing a form of disconnection between the height of the challenge that awaits us and the ability of activists to push ordinary people to action.
When we talk to experts, the observation is almost the same everywhere. On the one hand, there are people who refuse to see the wall we are rushing into. On the other hand, there are those who see the wall getting so close that they are paralyzed by fear, even defeatist. The two attitudes are born from contrary emotions, but end up coming together, to the extent that they result in a letting go, a form of letting go.
Climate mobilization is only possible in the balance between the two poles. We must both be aware of the seriousness of the situation and believe that it is possible to do something about it. The problem, however, is that the “climate optimists” camp is often monopolized by people who believe they can provide a solution to the problem precisely because they minimize the problem.
I am talking, for example, about those who believe that the arrival of electric cars can solve everything, while the production of batteries pollutes, that the increase in demand for electrical energy can also certainly pollute and that dependence on the individual car, Urban sprawl and the continuous paving of natural and agricultural environments pollute just as much.
We can also think of the spokespeople for the Canadian oil industry, who sell us the idea of an oil that is “more democratic” than that imported from dictatorships or more “sovereign” than that whose supply can be destabilized by major geopolitical conflicts or more “green” than that produced where environmental standards are lower. We are tirelessly told that the world needs this Canadian oil “while waiting” for our dependence on this product to end. However, we fail to say that by increasing the volume of oil available on the market, we necessarily delay the end of this dependence. Elementary economic logic obliges.
What is interesting about this rhetoric is that we are sworn to believe that climate change represents a significant challenge. In this sense, the discourse of Canadian extractivist industries has profoundly evolved. Simply, we would like to respond to the challenge in a “realistic” way. The realism here resembles a strange omelette recipe prepared without breaking eggs.
We are witnessing, in short, a neoliberal recovery of climate optimism. The problem is that the people who most want to stop the climate crisis see this recovery, and so become skeptical, not of the crisis itself, but of optimism. The neoliberal monopolization of optimism ends up snatching optimism from the truly climate-conscious.
After the hottest year on record, in the spring of a year that promises to be even hotter than the hottest year on record, for Earth Day, the streets of Montreal were almost empty.
Meanwhile, in the rest of Canada, the issue that has dominated the political news for months now is the Conservative push for the abolition of the federal carbon tax (from which Quebec is exempt, because we participate to a carbon exchange). Even the Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, flatly refuses to collect the tax for Ottawa, engaging his province in a standoff with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Scientists are already sounding the alarm. Given current conditions, the next forest fire season promises to be catastrophic. We fear the worst. That is to say, we fear worse than last year.
It makes me want to ignore the normal rules of the political game and invite elected officials concerned about the climate crisis to call a federal election in the middle of summer. Against an extremely likely backdrop of forest fires. And heatwaves.
The rise of Pierre Poilievre will be difficult to counter since the Canadians are reveling in a particularly mild fall or winter. But there is a chance to shake the electorate out of its inertia if it is called to the polls while it smells like smoke, from Kelowna to Yellowknife, via Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Val-d ‘Or, Montreal, Saguenay or Moncton, and that communities and perhaps entire cities must be evacuated. Like last year.
It is also difficult for political parties to announce cutesy environmental measures against a backdrop of orange skies. It is impossible, in such a context, for civil society not to become energized and not to increase the pressure it puts on its decision-makers. How, in fact, can we get away from it all for the holidays when plans are compromised because Canada is burning?
Who knows, a summer election in the heart of the hottest year on record could be an opportunity to get us out of collective paralysis. One thing is certain, however: we will not reverse the current trend without boldness.