I had to dig deep into the New York Times, my usual go-to source for “all the news that’s fit to print,” to find any mention of this weekend’s train explosion in the province of Quebec, not far from the Maine border.
Lac-Megantic on fire July 6, 2013
I knew about it only because here in Canada it’s at the top of the headlines, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper taking the time this Sunday to journey to the small town of Lac-Megantic, where the disaster occurred, to size up the situation and offer his condolences.
Officially, so far, five have been confirmed dead, with scores still missing; Lac-Megantic, pop. 6,000, is said to look like a war zone, with black fumes rising from the burning crude oil carried by the 73-car train.
This on a weekend when temperatures in the Canadian Maritimes soared to record-breaking heights, and harmful algal blooms worldwide choked out marine life along all the coasts.
Algae bloom on the Yellow Sea in China, July 2013
Astoundingly, at least one Canadian pundit responded to the burning crude and the smoldering township by calling for increased building of pipelines!
Another columnist, in the very same newspaper that reported on Nova Scotia’s unprecedented heat wave, had the nerve to call for more drilling and fracking for oil and natural gas on land and sea in the province.
If there are no more fish in the sea, we can at least extract the last of the fossil fuels, eh?
It’s time to get a grip, people.
What we need is not more oil and gas, but more wind and solar.
We need clean sources of energy, and we need to lower our consumption dramatically.
The window of possibility is smaller and tighter than most of us care to realize.
The tipping point is upon us.
This is not another action movie, a “White House Down”-style disaster flick, ending with the good guys reliably saving the day.
As we saw with the Arizona fires the other day, even the most hot-shot of heroes can go down in a blaze of glory when the fires burn out of control.
Do we really want to wait until the entire world is going up in flames, literally and figuratively speaking, before we act?
This is not a rhetorical question. And the answer, I believe, is NO. We can’t afford to sit on our hands any longer.
The time to act is NOW.
Transition Times 
Judy Eddy
/ July 9, 2013Great article, Jennifer. I have a saying taped up on my bookshelf: “Since I gave up hope, I’m doing much better.” I don’t remember where I found it, but it came along at a time when I was paralyzed by frustration with the way things are going in the world, literally making myself ill every time I opened up another email alert or petition request. I, too, still have a son to raise and need to keep going in “traditional” ways to keep things afloat. I do everything I can to lessen my impact – tread softly on the earth – and to write and call my govt representatives, etc. etc. but it seems so little, and so futile most of the time. Living in the moment, enjoying life. Gotta keep on keepin’ on with that attitude! Thanks for sharing your feelings and thoughts on these subjects.