Good Sunday Morning!

Hello all. Your irregular correspondent John Kidder subs in today. Elizabeth is fine, off to Halifax for Pride, and on and on and on she goes. I used to think when I was an entrepreneur that I was the hardest-working person imaginable. My imagination never extended to Elizabeth who is on the job all the time.

And hello dear reader, Elizabeth here to make this a first-ever joint Good Sunday Morning letter from both of us! (My parts will be in italics. John has had an interruption in his plans—to put it mildly—driving into a fire evacuation alert zone to put sprinklers on the roof of his place in Ashcroft. More on that later…)

You’ve probably heard that Jonathan Pedneault has resigned as co-leader of the Green Party of Canada. Elizabeth is disappointed. She had hoped for and been working hard for younger leadership.

In the press conference announcing Jonathan’s departure, Elizabeth said, among other things, “Baby boomers have f—ked this planet, and we can’t walk away and leave it for our kids to fix it…I’m a 70-year-old angry, cranky version of Greta Thunberg.” (If you’ve not seen it, it’s worth watching.) When I watched Elizabeth make that comment, I pumped a virtual fist. I oh-so-naively assumed that everyone in our community, at least everyone our age, would too. We did expect some caustic comments about her out-of-character use of the f-word.

By the way, the next words out my mouth were to apologize for using the F word, but I noted I knew young people would know what I meant. EM

Hardly anyone except a potential Conservative SGI rival cared about that (see letter below) but it generated a lot of feedback from constituents and the public about the assignment of blame to “boomers”. Many boomers were concerned that their good work for years feels dismissed, and that to assign blame to an entire generation is inconsiderate and unfair. Some felt that assigning responsibility for a worldwide disaster to just one generation was far too narrow. A few previous supporters, feeling disrespected, are turning away. Others, boomers included, said “You go, girl.” Elizabeth, as is her habit, has been responding to every letter she gets–some fences have been mended.

I am sharing one such letter to a constituent here – removing any personal details, but it gives a deeper sense of context and I hope you will find it helpful in explaining how our generation of boomers has allowed—on our watch—more damage than any previous generation: 

I am afraid one “out-take” quote from a longer press conference is being widely, and wildly, misquoted. I am a boomer myself. Born in 1954, and yes, I have been active in the environmental movement since 1970. I helped draft and pass most of the environmental legislation in Canada, so I cannot but agree with your comment.

The horrible reality is that no matter how much good and hard won fights we have fought and won, in my case dozens of them from fighting Agent Orange to protecting the ozone layer to stopping the clear cut logging of the ancient forests of Haida Gwaii and many other examples, I cannot excuse myself from the obligation to do far more before shuffling off this mortal coil. We cannot leave an increasingly unlivable world for our kids and grandkids. We have barely enough time to protect our biosphere from tipping points in the atmosphere headed toward the demise of human civilization. That can still be avoided but only with monumental effort.

I am struggling with the horrific conditions facing the younger generation. I hold myself to blame – so many decades working on the climate crisis while not doing enough. I have held news conferences on the latest science and technologies – talking about solutions, pointing out how our BC government is promoting fracking and driving up emissions. I spent months volunteering and intervening at the NEB to stop Kinder Morgan, I have been arrested fighting the Transmountain pipeline and weirdly, one line in one press conference gets more coverage than all of that. It was not calculated in any way. I am just so angry at all the lies and broken promises.

I have to be honest and say my words were due to my own sense of intergenerational injustice. I had just been speaking about the reality of knowing I have another grandchild expected in late October. I am very much part of a generation that has significantly threatened the future of that child. We knew in 1992 when Canada signed and ratified the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change that emissions from burning fossil fuels threatened the future of human civilization. In that treaty, also signed and ratified by every other country on earth, we pledged to avoid the increasing GHG reaching a level that was “dangerous.” We did not define “dangerous” but we generally reference the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere pledging to keep it as low as possible. In 1992 carbon dioxide concentrations were about 350 parts per million (ppm). We knew then that the levels had not been above 280 ppm in the previous 800,000 years. We knew this through verification in air pockets found in Antarctic ice cores. Today concentrations stand at over 420ppm. That is because since 1992 rather than reduce emissions, as promised, humanity has emitted more carbon dioxide by burning more oil, coal and gas between 1992 and now than between the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s up to 1992.

As a seventy year old grandmother I am angry at political leaders, prime ministers and governments of various parties in Canada and around the world making empty promises. I believe there is strength in numbers. As people in the boomer generation consider our moral obligation, we have time to avoid the very worst. That we have a moral duty to act and that we have the capacity to do so.

I struggle daily with how to do more. I am not a person who swears. Media know this and so they gave my comments this time more coverage but, as ever, without deeper context. How can I not blame our generation and myself? My years working on climate do not mean I am “off the hook” so to speak to do more to address the climate crisis.

Would you be willing to meet to discuss this more? I genuinely would appreciate your advice.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I would be so grateful if we could get together,

Elizabeth

Here’s a letter that ran in the Victoria Times-Colonist on Saturday, July 13:

Politicians, bureaucrats should get some blame

So Green leader Elizabeth May says, “You baby boomers have f—— up this nation.”

I am not a baby boomer. Preceded that group by couple of years so I am part of the “silent generation.”

I find it interesting she accuses all the hard-working boomers of messing things up, yet no blame to the politicians and bureaucrats who served through those years.

I guess she does not want to tick off some old buddies.

Paul Baldwin

Victoria

And these two were printed on Tuesday the 16th:

There was no need to use that language

On July 9, Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May gave a press conference arising from what I have no doubt was a stressful situation arising from the resignation of the deputy (co-leader) of her party.

During the press conference, for some inexplicable reason, she used obscene language towards Canada’s “baby boomer” generation — ironically, her own generation.

I have no doubt about her passion for the subject, but that said, there is no reason or excuse to engage such language before what was a national audience.

It was unprofessional and dismisses the contributions made by individuals from all generations within Saanich-Gulf Islands and across this great nation.

Ryan Windsor

Central Saanich

Note: Mr. Windsor is widely believed to be seeking the Conservative nomination in Saanich-Gulf Islands for the 2025 election.

One small word changes the meaning

Re: “Politicians, bureaucrats should get some blame,” letter, July 13.

It is a shame that the letter misquoted Elizabeth May by adding the word “you” in front of “baby boomers” in the reference to what has happened to the planet.

That said, it is a prime example of the fact that language matters, and a simple three letter word, when added, changes the entire tone of the discourse.

Bruce Coatta

Victoria

Elizabeth responded the next night with this:

We are responsible, so we should try to fix it

Re: “Politicians, bureaucrats should get some blame,” letter, July 13.

Please allow me to correct some of the letter.

It said that I assigned “no blame to the politicians and bureaucrats who served through those years” so as not to “tick off some old buddies.”

First, allow me to heartily agree that politicians and bureaucrats of all stripes over decades are primarily to blame, along with those who put short-term profit above a livable world.

I have spent my professional life calling out politicians, bureaucrats and corporations who serve the gods of power and money instead of caring for our only home.

I never said: “You baby boomers have f—— up this nation.”

I said: “Baby boomers have f—ked this planet, and we can’t walk away and leave it for our kids to fix it.”

I am a boomer, my husband is a boomer, lots of us are boomers. We are responsible for the state of the planet — our consumption of resources has been far greater than any generation of people in history, and our consumption of fossil fuels has done irreversible damage to the planet we’re soon to depart. We have done this, we continue to do it, and we show few signs of changing.

We all need to work as hard as we possibly can in the years left to us to bend the curve of fossil fuel pollution, to do as much as we possibly can to save what’s left for our children’s children’s children.

I hope the letter-writer will join us.

Elizabeth May, MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands

No reaction to that letter yet, but more is sure to come.

I’m sure most of you who read Elizabeth’s letters are among the people who for years have done what they could to make the world a better place, and I’m equally sure many of you are boomers. Elizabeth did make a big-blanket condemnation of boomers, without acknowledging all that hard work. Of course, being Elizabeth, she was really blaming herself.

I can see that her language was not considerate. It would have been better if she had said something like,

“I know so many of us have worked so hard for so long to make this world a better place, and we’ve made great progress together, but the fact is that our generation has f—ed this planet and we can’t walk away and leave it for our kids to fix it.”

But she didn’t. In the heat of the moment, she said “Boomers have f—ed the planet.” And of course, in large measure, she’s right. Boomers (age 60-78) still run and sit on boards of most oil companies and banks. Boomers run the car companies. Boomers were the first targets for mass marketing of everything, and boy oh boy did we buy everything, and use it up and throw it away and do it all over again and again. Gen Xers and Millennials are going a long way to emulate us, and Gen Z are being sold a lot of things, but we did lead the way. We used up a lot of the world and we polluted the atmosphere with our use of fossil fuels.

We all know that Elizabeth has the very greatest respect, admiration and love for all those boomers who have worked so hard as allies to the environment and the people of the planet. Of course, she did not mean that every single boomer is personally responsible for the sorry state of affairs, but that we all do share in the collective responsibility. In these days of hyper-sensitivity to criticism, she has inadvertently offended a few of the very people she loves the most.

That’s a shame. But it should not cancel the power of the message – more and more boomers/elders/seniors are getting angry about the failure of our generation to act on the first lesson of kindergarten – clean up your mess. That we’ve been hampered by various politicians and bureaucrats and businesspeople is part of an excuse – but we do after all live in what is still a democracy, we did elect those politicians, and our pension plans are still invested in those businesses. There is lots of room for many more boomer angry, cranky Greta Thunbergs.

On another cheery note, I am on a ferry headed to Vancouver and then up to Ashcroft for emergency fire preparations. I’m sure you’ve been hearing about the fires in the Interior – the Shetland Creek fire has forced the evacuation of many dear friends in the Venables Valley just west of Spences Bridge, and the town of Ashcroft is now under an Evacuation Alert. My little place north of Ashcroft is only accessible by going through the town, so I must get up there to get sprinklers going on my roofs before the “alert” turns into an “order”, or I won’t be allowed to go home at all.

The same thing happened during the heat dome–fires close by, my daughter alone in the heat without adequate instruction on setting up the pumps and pipes and sprinklers. That time, after multiple delays on the road caused by the people building the pipeline so we can burn even more fossil fuels, I had to get around to Ashcroft by back roads and convince the blockade that I had to get through as a matter of life and death. In the event, the day that Lytton burned up it was 50 degrees at my place—I’m sure you’ve heard that the town burned so fast there was not enough time to get the fire truck out of the station. It burned up inside—Julia got heatstroke and nearly died, and only by luck or providence were there no sparks near my old wooden buildings, fences, or the very dry grasses and sagebrush surrounding my place.

So here we go again. Every year from here on out. I’m reminded that we need to stop calling this weather “the hottest in history” and think of it as the coolest we’ll ever be again. And in case we feel that this is just happening here, that we’re somehow getting the worst of things, the sudden evacuation of Labrador City, another childhood home, snaps me right back to that landscape of rocks and lakes and little trees.  All over the world, where people are much less wealthy and have far fewer options than we western (dare I say?) boomers, the same sudden arising and immediacy of long-predicted  consequences of our profligate ways.

So yes, I too am a cranky, pissed-off, angry boomer. I too am responsible for the state of this our only home. I too have been working for years to try to mitigate my own damage. I too have been stunningly unsuccessful. We have, so far, failed–undoubtedly the most damaging collective failure in human history.

But we may, before we go, be at least able to bend the curve on fossil fuel pollution. It will take every ounce of energy, fighting against formidable opponents in politics, government and business. But the economic savings from renewable energy are no longer deniable, and industry’s resistance will eventually be conquered. The process of disruption is unstoppable. Our job is to stop the forces of delay. This we must do. This we can do.

Elizabeth will be back next week.

As I write this, I worry about John driving into the danger zone and ponder how more people seem to be upset that I was intemperate than that we are in a climate emergency while our governments – collectively – throw fuel on the fire in pipelines and fracking and fake “solutions” like wood pellets and carbon capture and storage and LNG. In any case the emails and letters on my boomer comment have started a number of very civil and engaged conversations. And again, I am sorry, love from me and praying for all threatened in this moment by the fires. EM.

I’ve just finished work here. The Bonaparte River on which my place depends completely has dropped a couple of feet in the last week, I’m sure because Forestry or Wildfire people have shut the outlet at Loon Lake to save water for the fires. As a result, my intake was high and dry, 20 feet from the water.  No water in my garden or my tanks, and no fire protection at all. Adaptation and resilience are easy words to attach to reports, but not so simple to implement in these multi-variate and complex systems we humans have built.  Much learning to come.

Be good to each other!

John Kidder and Elizabeth May