I know many of you are itching right about now to shove our beloved PM into his $2 million boondoggle of a fake lake, but we’ve got to keep our cool.
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An eye for an eye would involve turning Harper’s home riding into a vast, sticky tar pit, and we wouldn’t do that to Calgarians. So how do we stay Zen, sharpen our focus and make ourselves heard? Here are some tips on creatively giving voice to the planet and its four elements during the summit.
AIR: No amount of last-minute announcements on electric shuttle buses, wind-powered venues and “carbon-neutral” helicopter rides can offset the reality that climate change is little more than a pesky fly making a late landing on Harper’s G8/G20 agenda.
You can and should express your concerns by leaving a sharply worded message on the PM’s line (613-992-4211). Then get creative with it and bring your message to the street.
DIY painted kites, latex balloons and anything airborne (just don’t release them into the wind) will stand out from plain old placards. Imagine a large handful of black balloons with a gas pump-shaped sign scrawled with a message on ending Canada’s $2 bill in annual oil and gas subsidies, which would mean actually following through on a 2009 G20 commitment – go figure.
WATER: So many water issues, so little G20 face time. Fine – so bulk water exports are now officially off the table, but our water still gets sold a bottle at a time, with next to no controls, while we can’t seem to figure out how to get clean water to our own native communities.
And does Harper really intend to promote himself as a maternal-and- infant-health champ when just this week Canada blocked recognition of access to clean water as a human right at the UN? The ironies of the notorious fake lake media centre keep deepening.
Voice your water woes by filling a clear plastic jugs in Lake Ontario and doing a sacred water walk holding big blue river-like banners with words like “clean water is a right” while anointing the streets. Or help turn the tides by educating yourself at the Shout Out For Global Justice event.
FIRE: Facing another summer where forest fire hazards blaze high from coast to coast, you gotta wonder whether world leaders will put out both the literal and metaphorical flames raging across the planet, from the offshore oil catastrophe to the cries from poor countries battling climate-change-induced drought, water scarcity and famine.
How do we convince the feds to stop foot-dragging and penny-pinching on already promised mitigation funds for developing countries? Keep the home fires burning under Harper’s butt by carrying flame-shaped recycled cardboard signs calling on the PM to cough up some coin before the developing world burns. Actually, the full moon Saturday night is a perfect window for a sacred fire ceremony. Burn sage, sweetgrass and candles while meditating on releasing the past and asking the universe for an opening for change at this year’s G20.
EARTH: The government may have quieted the uproar around the uprooting of trees in the red zone (they could be used as weapons by giant lumberjack activists, you know) by committing to plant 1,200 trees elsewhere in the city, but we ain’t fools. Sure, we’ll take the trees, but no amount of foliage can hide the dissing they’ve been doing of our collective mom. It’s time to go Gaia on their asses.
Make yourself a DIY leafy crown and pedal or transit in peace to the heart of the action this weekend dressed as trees, leaves, living walls, hell, even a mystical Mother Nature herself. Wear a sapling from a local garden centre around your neck in honour of the trees axed from Front Street to Fiji without protection from the powers that be, who – let’s face it – would like bankers to inherit the earth.
And if full frontal protest ain’t your thing, just pin a leaf to your lapel or wear green as a quieter sign of support and use your own skills as a parent/teacher/sibling/neighbour/friend to spread the earth first message.
ecoholic@nowtoronto.com
