People need to step up to help protect the environment

Environmental 'superheroes'

Photo: Contributed

Members of Frack Free BC protesting against fracking outside Veronon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu's officer Vernon.

We need superheroes to face the challenges in front of us

Given the recent massive Jasper fire, the devastating Fort McMurray fires and our own recent troubles in the Okanagan andShuswap, we are now into new territory in terms of fire behaviour and our ability to protect ourselves.

One description of the Jasper fire noted a 500 C wall of fire, 100 meters high moving five kilometres an hour. No one can fight that.

Superheroes are often presented with an overwhelming threat that seems way beyond their capability but what makes them superheroes is they are not put off by the challenge.

What do our superheroes find when they arrive on our current scene? They find we measure success in terms of wealth, fame and position. We value possessions over relationships. As a result of their wealth, rich people and corporations are allowed to have a disproportionate influence on our governments, resulting in laws and policies that favour their continued plundering of our planet.

They find our consumption patterns result in an unsustainable rate of use of planetary resources. We are now on the brink of losing the biological support systems we need to survive.

They find we have lost our sense of time and concern for the future. Fossil fuels and the things we use them for are artificially cheap because we don’t count the costs we’re passing on to future generations. We export problems to the future with no accountability.

They find that our cultural glorification of the individual has caused us to lose our sense of connectedness, our concern for the environment and our world. The isolation that splits us from the living body of our world is an illusion. We would not survive without plants, soil, pollinating insects and other forms of life. We have divided humanity into “us” and “them”, which makes it easy to discount the harmful consequences of our actions, blocking motivation to change.

While climate-related disasters have wrecked the lives of many millions of people, there are millions more who, from the comfort of their homes, still don’t believe there is much of a problem.

To sum it up, we are carrying on as if nothing is wrong. It is hard even to talk about this as it is considered too depressing. We don’t have ways of talking about the challenges we face other than by battling over who is to blame or avoiding them altogether. So where are the superheroes?

The superheroes are us—you and me—right here, right now. We need to rise to the occasion with wisdom, courage and care, and start with a clear view of reality. We need to digest the bad news and develop ways of talking and acting for the sake of our world. We need to see that personal, community, and planetary well-being are intimately connected. We need to understand how interconnected we are and act for the good of everyone.

We need to show up as willing members of a team acting for a purpose much larger than ourselves, with the realization that we belong to a larger web and are essential to its well-being. We need to use the support of the community and the energy arising out of cooperation to make a difference. We need to understand the significance of our behaviour and the power arising from small steps.

We need to dismantle false hierarchies that set one group above another. We need to realize that the web of supportive relationships improves our quality of life. And we need to treat other forms of life with respect, knowing that without them, we wouldn’t be here at all.

We need to act from gratitude for the beauty of life and from our profound caring. We need to be inspired by a vision of a future life-sustaining society where everyone’s essential needs are met, where we have clean air, renewable energy, constructive processes to deal with conflict and materially simpler but richer lifestyles.

What a great challenge for superheroes.

Janet Parkins is a member of Climate Action Now! and Frack Free BC.