In partnership with Climate Change Newmarket-Aurora, NewmarketToday brings you a regular series of columns aimed at creating awareness and engaging our community to take action on climate change.
In high school, I remember learning about the human body’s built-in response system to a perceived threat. When we sense danger, we go into one of three modes: fight, flight or freeze. For a long time, my response to the threat of climate change was distinctly in the freeze zone.
I recycled, tried to buy second-hand where I could, avoided meat, and brought my own bags to the store. But actually, more than any of those things, I looked away. I skimmed past depressing articles about rising global temperatures. I hoped that somewhere there was a group of very smart, very capable people who were hard at work solving the climate crisis, and maybe I didn’t have to worry about it at all.
Now I have kids and everything feels different. A threat that also affects them doesn’t seem like something I can freeze my way through any more. Climate change affects everyone, but it will hit the most vulnerable in our communities, including children, the hardest. Despite the urge to look away or to freeze, it feels more important to act.
Linking up with others compelled to act, through Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora, has helped me to do what I hadn’t yet figured out how to do on my own: take real action locally, have meaningful dialogues with elected officials, and engage in conversations about the climate with people in my community.
Do I think this small but mighty committee will solve the climate crisis? Probably not. But I genuinely believe we can make a difference, and I know there is work that can be done right here in our town and in our province.
Whether it’s speaking up to protect Greenbelt land from being bulldozed for an unnecessary highway, pushing back against pollution-heavy gas plants, or insisting that our government end fossil fuel subsidies, we can speak and have our voices heard.
For those paying attention, news about the climate has been particularly alarming recently (see: September's record-smashing temperatures being described by a climate scientist as "gobsmackingly bananas"). When the problems seem so big and out of hand, how on earth does someone not freeze, or look away? This will continue to be my challenge, but I do still have hope that something can be done.
Climate actions are acts of hope for our future, and of care for the natural world that sustains us. We act, not just in response to a threat, but because we have hope, and we care.
Inspired by the international organization Project Drawdown, Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora seeks to engage citizens, institutions, and policymakers in actionable and measurable solutions to stop catastrophic climate change as quickly, safely and equitably as possible. You can contact them at climateaction.newmarketaurora@
