Stop Everything's getting good reviews in the blogosphere

Find us at: This Magazine

"This Magazine has an excellent post up from their environmental series Stop Everything. Read it. Then send Mr. Harper a friendly reminder on who he is in office to serve (that’s you; the people!)"

http://www.earthfeed.com/demand-more-from-harper-climate-change-before-donuts

"There’s a great blog tracking the lead up to the Copenhagen conference on climate change from a Canadian perspective. Written by sustainability activists Rebecca McNeil and Darcy Higgins, it addresses the political and social issues, as well as the urgency of climate change."

http://www.meander.ca/2009/09/14/preston-manning-on-climate-change/

On Twitter:

1LeslieGarrett Yes, yes, yes!!! RT @anndouglas: RT .@thismagazine Stop Everything #5: Environmental e-cards for the prime minister http://bit.ly/1Ym9sh

jafoulds RT @thismagazine: Stop Everything #5 - send Envir't Canada global warming e-postcard to Harper. Very funny.
1 day ago from web

ChicoSousa kewl read. RT @thismagazine: BlogThis // Stop Everything #4: Religion could stop climate change http://bit.ly/1A5JCL

A mistake is a mistake

Sarnia, as seen in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, might just make a new hotspot list.


A Toronto friend told me today he didn't know I was from Sarnia.

"I've been there a couple time for toxic tours," he noted.

The opportunities suddenly became so clear. I had no idea Sarnia was such an eco-tourism destination!

Think about it: a couple people come from another part of the province to check out our heavy metals and endochrine disruptors. Maybe they make a weekend out of it. They go to dinner for some decent chinese-canadian fair. The restau owner hires another server, who takes a trip to Lambton Mall to buy some new earrings and so on - think of the multiplier effects! The Chamber would be ever so pleased.

Even better, if they choose to drive to Sarnia they'll be using gasoline, playing their part to increase demand, bring up oil prices and help local business.

Now some think that the best way forward for Sarnia-Lambton is to create a new vision for green jobs, one that transforms our dependence on fossil fuel processing plastics, rubbers and gasoline into something different - an economy based in sustainable (non-ethanol) energy, arts, local agriculture, product re-use, industrial ecology and green manufacturing. They think that Sarnia's many mentions in global media have been giving us a bad name, and the least we could do is reduce pollution levels, if not our branding.

Let me be the first to admit that I shared that view. I was, simply, incorrect. Our future does lie in tourism, perhaps not as I had predicted.

Folks are clearly coming from far and wide to learn from us. There's something to be said about playing to your strengths.

Between Rocks and Hard Places

Stop Everything
Rebecca McNeil and Darcy Higgins

October 27, 2009

After the flash mob that appeared in Parliament yesterday, disrupting question period to call immediate attention to climate change, we had very mixed feelings.

The flash mob evokes tactics of yester-year, though a little more clever. To those of us who are used to doing campaign and policy work in the environmental sector, making incremental change by going in the front door with a suit and a tie (well a suit, anyways), it’s hard to not feel like this approach loses credibility for our whole sector and the point we are trying to make – that our government must act now to reduce climate change.

On the other hand, this as a desperate act from people hoping desperately to wake our government up, and on that sentiment, we couldn’t agree more. We have issued press releases, sent letters and petitions, aired public service announcements, written columns (ahem), penned books, held community events and press conferences, schmoozed officials and any other “respectable” tactic you can imagine to try to evoke change, for twenty years! The issue of climate change is by no means new, and two decades of respectability has not bailed us out of this problem.

When Green Party leader Elizabeth May joined the protest on Parliament Hill on the weekend (pre-Parliament flash mob), Rebecca asked her about her days in the Sierra Club and whether she’d ever thought she would see this kind of youth-lead activism when she helped form the Sierra Youth Coalition. Her response surprised us: “I never thought I would have to. I never thought it would get this bad.”

The woman’s got a point. Even the biggest of “doomsdayers” (as we have been affectionately called) didn’t anticipate that this kind of action would be needed because we all hoped our government would wake up before this. While some see the tactics of the flash mob as disrespectful, inappropriate, entitled or juvenile (all taken from the lovely “comments” section at the Globe and Mail), frankly, what mass demonstration has ever been pretty? When people are backed against a wall they will use every tool they have to fight back. After all, we are talking about scientific evidence that points to heightened and increased natural disasters, food and water scarcity for an already over-populated world, and the potential for international conflict, climate refugees and displaced people. Not only is there a Nobel prize-winning international scientific panel who agrees on this, but we have already begun to see the evidence.

In a press conference after the demonstration, May said that these youth were Canada’s best and brightest. Particularly in comparison to the country’s MPs. The chants didn’t sound much different from the regular banter in the House she thought, a theme the Globe picked up on as they started their story on the issue: “The shouting and heckling in the House of Commons had nothing to do with MPs yesterday...”

We didn’t think that the style of activism that spread through campuses in our parents’ generation like carbon-induced wildfires would be included in the activism of today.

May’s commentary was politically risky, but maybe it’s time we all started taking risks.




http://darcyhiggins.blogspot.com

Youth shout protest in Question Period, gain attention to climate crisis

Stop Everything

See youth protests on Bill C-311 and commentary by Elizabeth May at the CBC.

"Veteran parliamentarians said they could not recall a protest in the House of Commons that had ever involved so many people or which seemed as well-orchestrated." - National Post

the largest day of action in global history by far

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/23/350-rally


Follow Stop Everything at http://darcyhiggins.blogspot.com

Mahatma Gandhi changed the world, so what are you doing?

Stop Everything
Darcy Higgins

October 23, 2009

"Someone who works in a morgue, who sees so many bodies so many times doesn't realize the impact that someone else would."

It's an analogous situation with us and climate change, we sometimes keep observing events, in the newspapers, and we miss the profoundness. This is what Suresh Prabhu, told us when Rebecca and I caught up with him at the global screening of The Age of Stupid. Prabhu is a member of the Parliament of India and former Minister of Industry and Minister of Environment and Forests, among other posts.

The environmentally-minded politician saw Stupid as an effective wake up - a film that brings out these events with the necessary context.
Certainly it does that. Watching it is an experience, with the context provided by a number of stories of people today, in India, Louisiana, England and Nigeria. Most of these people want to do the right thing, but it isn't in their best personal interest do do so. It became evident to me that a significant change in our economy and job could be one of the significant and necessary changes that would both help these people and the impacts they make on the planet.

So what can we do? We asked Prabhu his thoughts on youth as activists.

"One man can change the world, look at Mahatma Gandhi," said Prabhu. "Transformational change must come from government, but we also need to ensure lifestyle change, things will not change by law alone."

He told us that massive education and movements were key to success. Government is just a starting point.

"You call the fire engine to stop the fire," he said.

This is what we youth and adults are doing across Canada Saturday. We're calling 911. Though "911" is "350". And longer-ter, we must work to change minds, that so easily get accustomed. "A process of unlearning," Prabhu called it.

Over in India, where each person contributes roughly one tonne of carbon dioxide compared with the average Canadian's twenty, the youth movement is taking strong action.

Much of the emphasis of the Indian Youth Climate Network is their delegation team and work with the Indian government. The youth have in fact asserted themselves so that they are being listened to by Lok Sabha, the Indian lower house.

The current Minister of Environment and Forests, Sabhu's successor put out a media release on their consultations.

Indian youth are a significant proportion of the voting population, and are engaged in citizenship. What can we learn from them? How can we demand that our concerns on climate are put into action by the Harper machine? If we don't have many politicians like Prabhu, maybe we have to be this change ourselves.

http://darcyhiggins.blogspot.com

Stupid is playing across Canada tomorrow. Remember to act as well.

See you in Ottawa?

Stop Everything
Darcy Higgins

October 17, 2009

By now, if you haven't heard about 350, Powershift or C-Day, you probably haven't been too engaged in the climate movement or not reading our column. Really, no hard feelings... but now you've got no excuses.

The buses are being readied, the organizers in place. Facebook's abuzz. If you're not heading to Ottawa, please act in your community.

I've been pondering what this will all mean. After most developing countries walked out of a meeting with Canada this week, what chance do we have to shift the position of Canada's New Government? What is the most effective way to make change?

How do we engage the public in a significant way to make this the issue?

Whatever the tactic, hopefully a conensus on the next move can come out at Powershift. This Saturday is the time to convene and to act. See you there!

I'll write soon with some ideas from India.


With less than two months left to define an international agreement in Copenhagan, young sustainability activists Rebecca McNeil and Darcy Higgins are writing Stop Everything, a column engaging in political strategies for change in tackling the climate crisis. They follow the youth climate movement in Canada and others as they work to cap greenhouse gas emissions and change society, and show you ways you can be involved at this most critical juncture.
Find, discuss and learn at: Sustainability is Step One

Image from: http://iycn.in Spectral Q / Shiv Ahuja

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