What does it mean to us?
Over 80 percent of Canadians live in cities, disconnected from
the natural world that makes up over 90 percent of our country. Mixed boreal
forest occupies over 40 percent of Canada’s diverse wilderness and a third of
the world’s boreal forest. But we don’t live there. For eighty percent of us,
our ecosystem is urban height and sprawl. When we encounter urban trees or
small parks, we aren’t experiencing anything remotely natural.
We don’t understand or appreciate what the natural world is or
does (for us) by simply being: the life-giving flow of water vapour, tree
aerosols and gases that we breathe in with every beat of our hearts; the
communication and vibration of pure wildness that contributes to our physical
and mental health—from smell to sight to touch and sound; the recursive
oscillation of polarities that spark all life—from lightening to the soil
beneath our feet; or the natural succession—from colonization to expansion to
death and regeneration—that invigorates and defines all that ever and will
live.
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| North American boreal zone |
Why would we? We’re not ecologists, scientists, or activists.
That’s someone else.
Ecology is the study of environmental relationships. We didn’t
learn it or experience it in our homes, locked within a dense row of houses or
on the tenth floor of an apartment building from where we commute to and from work.
With the exception of some indigenous schools (which teach respect for the
spirit of wildness), we certainly didn’t learn it in our schools.
We have no idea what the natural environment is.
And if we can’t even recognize it, how can we understand its
functional role in the intricate well-being of this entire precious planet?
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| Bramble Cay melomys |
It is no wonder then that most Canadians—though we may
intellectually accept climate change and its effects on this planet (because
we’re smarter than some)—likely do not viscerally understand or appreciate why
and how it will drastically change our lives. For most of us, climate change—as
with Nature—is something that is happening to someone else, somewhere else.
From those far away calamities to the quiet struggles no one talks about. We
hear and lament over the flooding in Bangladesh or the Maldives. Or the
wildfires in northern British Columbia. Or the bomb cyclones of the eastern
seaboard.
Meanwhile, the polar bear struggles quietly with disappearing sea ice
in the Canadian arctic. The koala copes quietly with the disappearing
eucalyptus. Coral reefs quietly disappear in an acidifying ocean. Antarctic
penguins silently starve with disappearing krill due to ice retreat. And while
jellyfish invade the Mediterranean, UK seas and northeast Atlantic, the humble
Bramble Cay melomys slips quietly into extinction—the first mammal casualty of
climate change.
So, those of us who are enlightened speak of climate resilience
and adaptation. We arm our cities with words like green infrastructure,
stormwater management, urban runoff control, flood mitigation. Ecological
literacy. But what are these things to us? They are tools, yes. Good tools to
combat and adapt to the effects of climate change. But will they create
resilience? I think not.
Resilience comes from within and through a genuine connection
with our environment. Tools, no matter how proficient, are only as good as how
they are used based on intention from a deep understanding. It isn’t enough to
achieve the How of things; we must embrace the Why of things. And
that comes from the heart. We must feel it in our hearts. Or it won’t work. And
we quite simply won’t survive.
Marq de Villiers wrote in his book Water that water has
become imperilled “not through the deliberate actions of evil men, the
corporate rapists of ecological fantasy, but through the small doings of
many—far too many—ordinary people, doing things in the way they have always
done them. That’s where the real danger lies.”
Greenpeace blames Coca Cola and Nestle for the plastic garbage
islands littering our oceans; but how did those plastic islands get there? who
bought them and then threw them out without a second thought where they were
going?
The answer lies with us, the ordinary people. With the choices we
make every day. With the language we use. With the respect we give. With our
heartfelt gratitude for this beautiful and still bountiful country we live in
that gives us the water we drink and the food we eat.
Canadians celebrate our multi-cultural heritage. We pride
ourselves in our tolerance and welcoming nature. Our national anthem speaks of
our land. Our national symbols embrace nature with the maple, beaver, caribou
and loon. Yet who of us knows the habitat of the loon—now at risk, by the way (climate
change will impact much of its breeding grounds). Who knows what the boreal
forest—which makes up over half of our country—is? How it functions to keep
this entire planet healthy, and what that ecosystem needs, in turn, to keep
doing this? Who understands that we all live in a watershed with an associated
water cycle and what consequences water diversion, removal, squandering or
pollution will have on it?
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| Rosedale Ravine, Toronto |
Ecology isn’t rocket science. Ecology is common sense. Ecology is
about relationship and discovery.
Open yourself to discovery. Go find Nature, even if it is in the
city. Connect with something natural, green and wild. Find the wonder of it.
Find something to love.
When you do, you will find yourself. And that is where you will
find resilience.
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