Climate strike comes to Brandon

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This article was published 16/09/2023 (991 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A worldwide event had a local connection with a group of Brandonites who were chanting about climate change and advocating for the planet during a global climate strike on Friday.

About two dozen people who are supporters and members of Sustainable Brandon, marched from Knox United Church at 18th Street and Victoria Avenue, east to city hall and on to a gathering at downtown’s Princess Park.

They carried signs bearing slogans like “Human change not climate change” and “Care for our planet, support green energy.”

Helping to carry the main banner on the front line was Anna Ramsey, who is in her first year at Brandon University.

Ramsey belonged to a climate club in high school, and last year attended the global strike in Germany, which inspired her to bring it to the Wheat City.

“The future is now. We are at a point where we might not be able to return, and the Earth will only get hotter and face worse changes from now on. However, even the smallest changes in your life can make a bigger change,” Ramsey said.

The climate strike, called Fridays for Future, is a youth-led international movement started by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2018.

Over the past few months, Earth broke its daily average heat record several times, July was the hottest month ever on record, and the Northern Hemisphere’s summer was declared the hottest on record, according to Amnesty International, which is a worldwide organization that promotes all human rights.

The changing climate and the effect that it’s having on the planet is causing young people anxiety, said Bryston Langlois, a BU graduate of philosophy, who is studying for a master’s degree at McMaster University in Ontario, which includes research on eco-anxiety.

“In the past, we kind of looked at the environment as some static thing that we could act upon, and that it was just in the background, and it didn’t really matter,” Langlois said.

The difference now, Langlois said, is how the environment has become mainstream in society, with more discussion than ever before about people having to make significant changes because of it. And that is causing anxiety.

“People have anxiety about death and extinction and all these terrible calamities that can happen as a result of climate change. And that is what gives them this feeling of unease about the world, or, that they don’t have a future. So that’s why I’m here now because, well, we have to stand up and hope, and fight for a future,” Langlois said.

Sustainable Brandon was created a few years ago, with goal of bringing like-minded people and organizations together, to convince the city to consider climate in all decisions, and to put the brakes on the runaway climate change, said Quentin Robinson, a member of the board of directors who is also the NDP candidate in Brandon West in the upcoming provincial election.

Additionally, the group’s goal is to work toward environmental sustainability, which Robinson said means “looking at everything we’re doing, and asking can this carry on into the future in such a way that the earth will still maintain its integrity?

“Are we using public transit as much as we can? Are we walking and cycling as much as we can? When we have to use a car, are we using zero-emissions vehicles? When we’re heating our homes, are we moderating the temperature as much as we can to reduce fossil fuel use, and are we looking at alternative ways of heating our homes? That’s what sustainability is,” Robinson said.

For Betty Kelly, it’s her rural roots that influence her to this very day she said, by using less and wasting less when it comes to the environment.

As Kelly walked with the group carrying a sign, “The planet is on fire, take action now,” she said: “What we put in the garden is what we get out of the garden.

“From my parents’ generation to now, I see people forgetting that we can’t just buy and dispose, buy and dispose. That whole disposable society that we’ve evolved into is so not healthy. So I’m going to keep spreading the message that we each have to do a little bit,” Kelly said.

The message has hit city hall, said Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2), who added that in 2018, council’s strategic plan recognized that climate had to be considered in all policy decisions.

“We released our climate action plan this year, and there are lots of different strategies and actions laid out there. So I think we need to put those wheels in motion. We’re trying to get to net zero by 2050, we’re trying to have a carbon-free corporation and all the other things that go into making our communities safer, sustainable and climate friendly,” Desjarlais said.

This Monday, the city’s environmental co-ordinator will be making a recommendation to council to dissolve the current environment committee and create a new committee of council called the Environment and Climate Change Action Committee, involving members of the public.

Desjarlais said he’s optimistic that members from Sustainable Brandon will consider putting their names forward to “help council make good decisions moving forward, and moving the climate change action plan along — where it needs to go.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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