We have arrived at a moment of truth.
The enclosure of the commons, and the rise of industrialization and capitalism fueled the subjugation of peoples and lands.
Will we finally act on the certain knowledge that continuing to extract and furiously burn fossil fuels means death for our children and of Mother Earth?
This moment requires that we return to Indigenous ways of living for each other and honoring the earth.
Indigenous peoples around the world have never stopped working and dying to preserve their ways. That is what Standing Rock and the struggles of the Wet’suwet’en people are about.
This is our moment of truth. We each have a choice. Will we do nothing and continue down the path of environmental devastation and social collapse? Or will we recognize this is our last best hope? Will we act in solidarity with Indigenous peoples, with the Wet’suwet’en?
Our moment of truth, justice and reconciliation
Elizabeth Evans May OC MP is a Canadian politician who served as leader of the Green Party of Canada from 2006 to 2019 and Member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. Wikipedia
How could we convince lawmakers to pass laws to protect wilderness? Lopez argued that wilderness activists will never achieve the success they seek until they can go before a panel of legislators and testify that a certain river or butterfly or mountain or tree must be saved, not because of its economic importance, not because it has recreational or historical or scientific value, but because it is so beautiful.
Reid, Robert Leonard. Because It Is So Beautiful: Unraveling the Mystique of the American West . Counterpoint.
His words struck a chord in me. I left the room a changed person, one who suddenly knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to do it. I had known that love is a powerful weapon, but until that moment I had not understood how to use it. What I learned on that long-ago evening, and what I have counted on ever since, is that to save a wilderness, or to be a writer or a cab driver or a homemaker—to live one’s life—one must reach deep into one’s heart and find what is there, then speak it plainly and without shame.
Quakers, social justice and revolution 