Dear Mr. Prime Minister, and all those it may concern,
It has been quite a year hasn’t it. We’ve had a pandemic, global marches against racism, unprecedent wildfires all over the world, and through it all I’ve been writing you a letter a week about climate change. Since December 11th 2019. And it being December 11th 2020, I think I’ll take a break from my letter writing quest. But just because I’m not going to be here every week reminding you of the importance of climate action and environmental justice doesn’t mean it’s stopped being important, it just means I’m tired.
I want to leave you with some questions. My letters are often centered around a question and you (since I started this) haven’t really answered any of them. You and your government haven’t really made advancements on climate change AT ALL this year. And yes I know you’ve been dealing with the pandemic, but you still had so many opportunities to stand for climate justice (like implementing a Just and Green recovery). But you didn’t really take them, instead giving us this disappointment that was Bill C-12 and more empty words. So, my first question is why? Why aren’t you taking every opportunity you can to lower emissions?
#2: Why are there still communities in this country with no access’s to water?
#3: Why aren’t you supporting oil companies instead of workers?
#4: WHY ON EARTH DID YOU BUY A PIPLINE!?!?
#5: Why do you continue to allow violence against Indigenous Land Defenders instead of working with them as you’ve promised to do?
#6: Why isn’t our carbon budget as important as our financial budget as I suggested it should be in letter four?
#7: Why aren’t we on track to meet the crucial Paris targets?
#8: Why doesn’t Canada have a better subsidy program for people who want solar panels and other green energy for their homes?
#9: Why are you ignoring the voices of millions of youth in Canada?
Since the beginning of this year I’ve graduated junior high during a global pandemic, joined Climate Strike Canada, gotten my second dan on my black belt in Taekwondo, worked on a series of books to be published, written my first song on the piano and yet, I think my biggest accomplishment is writing you 53 letters about climate change. I’ve learned so much about the climate crisis and about myself as a writer by doing this. But has it actually had an impact? Wel…that is for you to say. By you I mean the employee of the Prime Minister who will likely read this. By you I mean the people who read my letters on my website every week. By you I mean every person who has the privilege to act on the greatest threat to human existence. Read up, get educated and demand accountability from government.
This crisis didn’t go away with 53 letters. This crisis won’t go away with a single bill. This crisis is massive, and it will take all of us committing not to let each down to fix it. We have to unite as a global community, unite around science, Indigenous knowledge and the dream of a better future (or at least a livable one). We have to do it for the children of today and of the future, as well as those, mostly in the global south, who are already suffering.
My last question is a very broad one, but consider it with the lenses of the climate crisis. What do we owe to our fellow humans? We are failing to meet the target’s laid out in the Paris accord, and by doing so we are letting down our international partners and all the children who are counting on a 1.5 degree limit on warming for survival. We owe it to the world to meet those targets. But on a more personal level, we (the western world) are failing actual human beings living half way around the world today. Nemonte Nequimo, an activist in the Amazon said in an interview with the guardian, “This is my message to the western world. Your civilization is killing life on earth… In each of our many hundreds of different languages across the Amazon, we have a word for you – the outsider, the stranger. In my language, WaoTededo, that word is “cowori”. And it doesn’t need to be a bad word. But you have made it so. For us, the word has come to mean (and in a terrible way, your society has come to represent): the white man that knows too little for the power that he wields, and the damage that he causes.”
I believe that we have a duty to our fellow humans and that we, as a rich country, are not fulfilling it. Every single one of us has a duty to do what we can, keeping in mind that many people are trying to figure out where their next meal will come from, and expecting them to make that meal vegan and plastic free is horrible.
Consider my questions, and figure out how we’re going to meet the Paris agreement PLEASE. Because we all owe each other a livable planet.
Now I say this every time, and I want you to know that I truly mean it. I hope you have a wonderful day,
Amelia Penney-Crocker