Dear Mr. Prime Minister and all those it may concern,
In 2020, I wrote a letter a week to this office about climate change. Much has happened in the two years that have passed since I stopped writing. I’d just turned 15 when I sent my last letter, and now I’m 17. I used to observe people, who don’t deny the severity of our current situation and yet aren’t doing everything they can to stop it, with confusion. But in the years that have passed, my perspective has broadened and my heart has hardened. I now have a better understanding of why so many freeze up in the face of more and more climate change induced suffering looms. In the two years that have passed since I stopped writing, I too have become a well informed person doing nothing. Our modern capitalist system is crafted to reduce us and distance us from our humanity. We are made to feel like producers, consumers and products. This drains us and limits our ability to act in situations such as the one we’re in now. It’s not only easy to choose inaction, it’s incredibly difficult to choose action. The climate crisis is already overwhelming, and on top of that, the system that we all function in overwhelms us, practically by design. So in growing up a bit, I better understand the position you’re in… doesn’t mean I’m not still mad.
In the past two years, I not only learned about how hard it is to take action under pressure, but also about how beautiful climate action can be. In previous letters and interviews I talked about what I called “the crossroad to the future”. I described with flowery language a difficult road that leads to a beautiful, prosperous future, full of joy and life. Then, an easy road that led to wildfires, floods, famine and mass destruction. I’d say we’re headed down the second now, but what we need to do is pick the first. Yes it’s hard, yes it’s more work, but it’s necessary, for a better future. I no longer believe in this metaphor. Not completely. It’s still a worthy one to some degree, but the conclusion that I always ended with is not quite right. Last year, in September I attended a protest led by Indigenous activists. At one point an Elder took the mic and began to tell the story of two crossroads. I was amazed that I’d been using the same analogy as this brilliant woman, I thought that I knew the end of the story, I thought we were telling the same story – but I was wrong. She said the answer was to stop, look at the roads and turn back the way you came. Instead of barreling towards the future, return to the past. She explained that when things get dire enough, settlers will realize that they need to return to the wisdom of the Indigenous peoples of the land, and that this traditional wisdom will provide the way to survive climate change.
Indigenous people have been sending warning signals and fighting on the front lines of the climate crisis for years, and yet they continue to be punished for their heroism. The police violence in Wet’suwet’en territory and at Fairy Creek must stop immediately. Your failure to do this will condemn you in the face of what ever future generation is able to exit. Not stopping this colonial abuse is horrific. The group of people paying attention to this now may be small, but it will grow. We will see this police violence for what it is: a facette of the continued genocide of Indigenouse peoples for the benifit of the capitalistic system currently making the planet unlivable.
I know you know this. How could you not? It’s becoming increasingly impossible to hide from the truth. As I write, children are being kept from playing outside because the air quality is too bad, the arctic is warming at a rate four times faster than the rest of the world (did you know it was two times faster when I last wrote to you – it seems that things only get worse when we do half of what is needed), which threatens to cause catastrophic sea level rise and young people are giving up on having a safe, livable future.
My generation, the generation that has been pleading and begging for action for years has become increasingly apathetic, burnt out and cynical. You might think we’re exhausted from trying to persuade climate deniers, but it’s actually from conversations with people like you. Smart people who see the issues in the world, believe in science and even frequently publicly discuss climate change and introduce policy to try and help. People like you make us hopeful and than you do nothing while Indigenous rights continue to be violated, our country continues to make money off the oil sands and fails to put that money towards helping the global south secure their infrastructure against climate chaos brought on by western oil industry. You talked about being for the people then turn around and continue to allow corporations to use their absurd money and influence to get permission to destroy vast swaths of land while taxpayer dollars go to cleaning up their messes. Young people, like myself, feel like we’re living in an alternate world. We’re seeing massive amounts of destruction and suffering and we are seeing, from reading the research readily available to anyone, that it will only get worse. But when we speak out, when we try to show smart, capable leaders like you, you tell us you know and that you’ve got this handled. This should be comforting, but when your actions deviate so drastically, it leaves us to wonder whether you really are seeing what we’re seeing and whether you care at all.
While you and your government have made some good moves that have slowly moved the needle of progress – I hope you see that it’s not nearly enough. Solutions stemming from Indigenous knowledge, such as controlled burning to mitigate the risk of forest fires, need to be explored. People living in poverty, especially those in the Alberta Oil Sands need to be supported through this difficult time. Corporations cannot be permitted to destroy our futures for profit just because they have the money to put politicians in their pockets. Poor countries must be aided in transition away from fossil fuels on their terms while rich counties must foot the bill and the responsibility. Yes these are hard political moves, but they are necessary and you can do it if you just make it a priority. The solution to climate change cannot be administered with a colonial or corrupt hand. Humanity is at stake, but humanity is also the solution. The most effective way to combat climate change is investing in people.
You believe the science, and I’d be willing to say you understand it. You know that there is a temperature threshold that we must stay below to ensure a livable future and you must know that what we’re currently doing isn’t going to cut it. So why try at all? Why not give up? The bizarrely slow way that global governments have acted towards this crisis has led many in my generation to turn to this kind of pessimism as I mentioned before. The explanation for doing only so much, but never quite enough, is that there are other issues to attend to. As a climate activist, I feel like a broken record saying that climate change affects every issue, but it does! Failure to take adequate action on climate change is going to lead to more future problems, problems that will make many of the positive changes your government has tried to make in Canada null. To prove this point I‘m going to write a few more letters to follow up this one that talks about how climate change will affect some of your biggest platform issues. I hope you await them eagerly.
I do sometimes wonder, and I’m not alone, if you simply do not care about this issue you preach about and are just enjoying your comfy paycheck. Since much of the destruction from climate change will happen once you’re out of office, it will have little affect your political future. If this isn’t true, and I sincerely hope it isn’t, prove it to all who doubt you. You’ve been elected, you’ve achieved the power to take significant action on issues you care about. So go for it!
System change is needed, or climate change will change the system for us and probably not in the way we’re going to want. I’ve heard a lot of talk about “late stage capitalism”. I’m no economist but I do love languages – and to me, “late stage capitalism” implies that it’s soon going to be over. Capitalism, in its “late stage”, has tricked us into defending it and seeing ourselves as a cog in its valuable machine. But capitalism doesn’t hold value. Human lives, the natural world, love and joy are the things we should actually be protecting. When capitalism stomps all over them, we need to refuse to participate. We need to do what is best for the things that hold true value. When so-called radicals say “tear the system down”, we are told that that’s impractical, impossible and costly, but the system is tearing itself down as I write. The foundations of our society are crumbling due to self-inflicted wounds that continue in an never ending cycle of suffering in the pursuit of profit. Never ending of course, until we choose to end it. We choose to stop, turn, and walk back down the road.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Amelia Penney-Crocker