Last week I attended “Letting in the Light,” a symposium on water ecology held at the University of Alberta (#UAwater). I was honoured to create a painting for one of my heroes, David Schindler.
Also in attendance was David Suzuki and what he had to say during the Question Period will leave you thinking long and hard about the safety of our planet. (Video below)
At the time of this writing it has already been viewed over 38,000 times and due to the serious threat Fukushima poses to life on earth I have no doubt those numbers will climb as more and more people wake up to this unimaginable danger.
Now, before you go make yourself a bunker, we’re talking absolute worse case scenarios here. Chances of a full scale threat are very low on the probability scale.
So have hope.
Get informed and speak out. The world of Human Beings is moved more by the groundswell of the people than by any other force. Right now, the majority of people are inert, apathetic. But that can change in a moment.
We would all do anything, fight any foe, to protect our loved ones. But what if the foe is silent? Slow moving? Attacks unseen and unknown until it is too late?
That’s the reality we face now.
So let’s say it did get as bad as we fear.
Radiation plays no favourites and it takes an awful long time to dissipate. Lifetimes.
Radiation leads to cancers. Aside from the horrible human and animal suffering mass cancers would represent there is the chance of a massive and unsustainable drain on the Health Care system and upon the economy itself. Add to the equation the dire possibility of half the world’s food source poisoned beyond recovery and you can begin to imagine the unpleasantness in store.
And this is the type of unforeseeable catastrophe that movements like Idle No More have been warning against. As David Schindler said in the video above: “There are things that are important enough that you don’t tolerate any risk.”
Water, and the reliance of our very existence on clean water, is one of those things. Elders say that we are very near to damning our children and theirs’ to an intolerable and short lived existence of suffering and pain.
There are already reports of mass die-offs of ocean life in the Pacific and just tonight I read a report on the sudden and mysterious deaths of starfish all along the West Coast of north America.
If you were waiting for a mass extinction event to finally do something, you may not get it, but a warning like this should wake us all up a little more to our responsibilities as voters, buyers, creators.
After all, if we do nothing and events like Fukushima continue it can only get worse from here.
But we can still act.
We can still make a difference, make it better.
Can we take our responsibilities as a mother, father, daughter or son seriously and help stem the blind tide of greed and pride?
As blunt as the question is, we do need to ask it.
I pray you will be the compassionate warrior the world needs.
It’s time to rise in whatever peaceful, firm and strategic ways you can.
“But what if it’s not that bad?”
The mere fact we have to ask that question tells us it’s bad enough.
It can only get better if you stand, rise, speak and demand.
We’ve been silent and trusting for longer than we know is wise.
Will you stand at last?
hiy hiy
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