Mario Vella and Brent Patterson at the Blue Skies music festival
This afternoon, Toronto environmentalist Mario Vella and I did a climate justice workshop with about 40 people at the Blue Skies music festival near Clarendon, Ontario.
The workshop, which took place inside the ‘Tipi’, reviewed some of the indisputable facts of the climate crisis the world is now facing.
We also talked about the recent studies that show the climate change-related warming of Lake Superior and the dropping water levels in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.
We also covered the shrinking of glaciers in Canada (which help to feed our aquifers), the warming of air temperature and dropping snow levels, and the climate damage caused by the massive and expanding tar sands in Alberta.
But most of the workshop gravitated to the Peoples World Conference on Climate Change that took place this past April in Bolivia, the planned global referendum this coming April, and how the outcomes of the Copenhagen climate summit stand in stark contrast to the peoples declaration developed in Cochabamba.
It was great to see the level of interest expressed in Cochabamba and the sense that a better world is possible – and that at times we can already see real examples of that better world.
A reading of the five questions proposed for the global referendum at our workshop made it very clear the high level of understanding and support for climate justice.
It was also great to have Melissa Dick from our national office at the workshop.
In the coming days, the workshop outline and another photo from today will be posted to this campaign blog.
