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Environmentalism
The Climate Change Despair and Empowerment Roadshow
Try bringing up climate change in casual conversation, suggests a notable activist in a visit to Vancouver
By Holden Krasnoje
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Kelly Tudhope, volunteer at the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia, spoke to roughly 200 people at the Vancouver Planetarium on August 15 as part of her Climate Change Despair and Empowerment Roadshow.
She discussed the maddening situation of having an atmosphere with C02 levels the highest they've been in 670,000 years, and recent polls showing 93% of Australian citizens expressing concern about climate change while still little is being done by national governments or industry to reverse these trends.
Bringing a message of optimism, Tudhope feels that despair is not a dead end. She believes that by working through the grief and powerlessness that learning about these large problems can create, the clarity and empowerment needed to make change can be found.
"We can feel quite isolated in our emotions towards the environment and a lot of people don't really talk to each other," said Tudhope. "You can go out to a party, or something, and people will say, 'How are you today?' and 'Oh yeah, all's good.' It's certainly not the right answer to say, 'Oh, well, I'm really in despair because 30,000 species died last year.' And so, we've got this conditioning about how to respond. And so, if we can overcome this and express our feelings in a room full of people, then it's an amazing experience that brings the empowerment that we need to act on this issue."
The audience was invited to initiate discussion with strangers, and by the end of the event most had enthusiastically signed up for an email forum to be notified of upcoming climate change events.
In Vancouver, the next Climate Change Cafe will be Sunday, September 30, 2 pm to 5 pm, in East Vancouver's WISE Hall (1882 Adanac Street). Admission is free.
Following Tudhope's condemnation of Australian Prime Minister John Howard's call for Australians to "pray for rain," and his support for coal and nuclear power generation, she went on to describe other misguided efforts around the world. In Malaysia for instance, massive deforestation is being carried out to produce palm oil for biodiesel which, like ethanol from food crops, also competes with food crops for use of farmland.
During the question and answer session, Tudhope was asked about turning over power generation to private industry and she strongly advised against it. This led to a discussion about one of the event's sponsors, the BC Sustainable Energy Association which advocates private power generation.
A Wilderness Committee facilitator ended the condemnation of the BCSEA because there was no one present from the group to defend its actions.
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