In 1990, Kanehsatà:ke land defenders barricaded a secondary dirt road to stop the expansion of Oka’s nine-hole golf course on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka homeland. It began the “78-day siege” of Kanehsatà:ke, including Kahnawake.
Pleased with her good fortune, the woman remarked, “We’d planned to go to Mexico this summer, but we didn’t need to. It was hot enough here!”
In a different time, it wouldn’t be such an unsettling comment to have overheard while out and about in Alberta, where summers were short and often cool.
But in the midst of a season marked by climate extremes and disasters, it made me wonder how well it’s understood that what we’re seeing is not some temporary aberration; this new summer heat is the sign of a lasting condition. And it isn’t one we should delight in.
The independent Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has crunched the numbers on countries' updated 2030 Paris Agreement targets and found Canada’s “highly insufficient,” pouring cold water on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s campaign emphasis on expert endorsements.
Today, Sept. 17, marks the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street (I know, I was surprised, too). On this day in 2011, a mass protest began in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, located in the heart of the financial district. It lasted weeks and spread to cities around the world, including many in Canada.
[This is the third part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought, ZNet and Links. The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout and can be read here.
