Seriously.

So, yesterday yet another ominous report was published:
Europe’s oceans changing at unprecedented rate

The day before we heard that:
Earth’s Coral Reefs May Be Wiped Out Entirely By The End Of The Century

A few days before we were told that:
Arctic ice set to match all-time record low – Satellite measurements reveal that volumes have fallen consistently over past 30 years

And the week before:
Scientist left speechless as vast glacier turns to water

These articles were all published within the last two weeks – but it’s not as if they are new news.

For several years there have been numerous reports predicting the scenario ahead:

• sea-level rise affecting coastal communities;
• ocean acidification destroying coral reefs as well as numerous other species that we depend upon for food;
• accelerated melting of glaciers and ice caps;
• extreme weather events – flooding, tornadoes, droughts, heat waves – many of which are likely attributable to climate change;
• and more…

And then of course there was that letter written nearly 20 years ago, addressed to humanity and signed by 1700 of the world’s top scientists, warning us that “If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.”

We have all this knowledge, and we’ve had it for some time now. Those warnings of nearly two decades ago are coming true – with many of the predicted changes startling the scientists, because they are happening even more quickly than had been foreseen.

But what I don’t get is how we can hear all this, yet not take action. I have talked to several of my friends about it: they know how concerned I am about the future of our planet, and for all life on the planet. (Obviously, the planet itself will be fine, continuing to hurtle through space with or without us. It is our knowing destruction of the lives upon it, including our own, that disturbs me).

And a lot of what I get back from people is that they don’t like to think about such unpleasant things.

Well, as Noam Chomsky wrote last week, “The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat.” (Chomsky stated this in a different context, writing on a different subject – but the quote applies equally well here).

Pretending that these grave changes to our planet are not happening: going on with our daily “normal” lives; looking on the bright side; and choosing not to think about climate change and what we need to do about it (or, more precisely, what we should have done about it a few decades ago) is not going to make it go away.

I can’t help but be the kind of person who wants to be informed about things. As I have written here before, sometimes I wish I didn’t know the things I know. But I think it is my responsibility to know. And I also think that, if I see something bad that is going to happen, that I can prevent, it is my duty to take action to prevent that thing. For there is no point in having the knowledge if you are not going to use it. We have a responsibility to take action. (Even more so, if you have kids who you claim to love).

But really, I am just tired of it all now. We have set our path. Climate scientists know what is coming, and how the momentum of our society (still, even today, pushing for economic growth as if it will be the saviour of all things!) is probably too great to change now. It’s already happening – and there is a part of me that just wants the rest to come quickly, get it over with, so I can stop reading about it.

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.“
Rush, from their song “Freewill”

On one level, I am really happy that I have such a strong Earth Sciences background. But I find, more and more, that I wish I didn’t know the things I know. Especially regarding the future of our planet and the future of our species. Last week I talked about our planet, this piece of rock whirling its way through space. It’s been doing that for several billion years now – and it will continue to do that.

But it’s quite possible that, within a few decades or a century, it will be doing that without us… or at least without most of us.

The problem with having this scientific knowledge, this understanding of the magnitude and scale of earth processes (e.g. how long it takes for something as big as a planet to heat up or to reverse that heating; how significant a degree or two of warming is when you consider how much energy that represents when that degree of temperature is an average over the planet – in other words, a huge addition of energy) is that it makes it hard to feel optimistic. Because my outlook on what we are doing, where we are taking ourselves, is too grounded in fact. In reality.

I think a lot about this idea of optimism. Often, I feel like optimism is an evil thing. We can feel optimistic that someone will find a solution, or that technology will save us, or that the Lord will intervene. But by feeling that optimism, it gets us off the hook: instead of realizing where we are headed, instead of doing something to prevent that bad outcome, we can just look on the bright side, have faith that it will all be OK, and go about our merry business.

I remember feeling this way when I worked on an adventure race in Chile. I was in charge of safety for the kayaking sections of the race. To me, that meant that my job was to foresee what could go wrong, in advance of it ever happening, and taking the actions to prevent it from happening. To think of all of the “what-ifs”. What if someone broke their paddle – do we have spare paddles on the compulsory gear list? What if the teams are far apart and a strong wind comes up and tips several kayaks at once – do we have enough support boats to effect all the rescues? My Chilean colleagues accused me of being a pessimist. “Just think positive,” they admonished. “Pray that the wind doesn’t come up.”

But I wasn’t being pessimist. I was just looking ahead, being realistic. These things happen in Patagonia: the wind does come up, and the water is very cold. We are an intelligent species. (So they say). One thing that we humans can do is look ahead and see where things are going, and take action to influence that course.

As I look ahead, though, with all of this bloody Earth Sciences knowledge that I hold, I find it hard to be optimistic. In fact, for the past few years I have felt that this knowledge, which forces me to be a realist, has also turned me into a pessimist.

In fact, until this week, I thought that I held out no hope at all.

But on Monday, Jack Layton, the man who epitomized hope and optimism, died. I am surprised – no, shocked – that for two days I have been in tears over a man, a politician no less!, who I never met, who I never once saw in public.

And I realize that I must still have some hope left in me. I would not be crying if I had already given up.

Jack gave hope to our whole country – even to a realistic pessimistic cynic like me. It is so sad, so very very sad, that we will never know what he would have accomplished in these coming years, these years that he should have had, as Leader of the Opposition.

Jack Layton’s last words to Canadians have been oft-repeated these last two days, but they are worth repeating:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

But I looked at the garbage bag. There was little over a fistful of garbage in it.

This is how much garbage I produced this week! I have been putting a lot of effort into reducing the amount of garbage I produce – but even so, I actually surprised myself!

Yes, it definitely takes extra time to not produce garbage. Just like it takes time to undertake other initiatives that are good for our environment, such as walking or riding a bike rather than driving. I am not saying that it doesn’t take time. It takes time.

But honestly, I am tired of hearing people tell me how busy their lives are, and how they just don’t have the time in their busy days to cook real food rather than heating up something from a package, or walk (or make their kids walk) instead of zipping around in their cars. Many of those people can talk about TV shows that I have never heard of, and keep up a pretty active social life online. It’s not only a matter of time – it’s a matter of priorities.

The garbage thing, the consumerism, the waste… to me, these are important. They are important to our future and, especially, if you care at all for kids, even more important for their future. So I make the time for it. It’s a priority.

I am not trying to be preachy here, or to say that I am perfect and you guys should all do what I do. I screw up too – you will notice in my garbage bag there are a few paper teabag wrappers that I should have put in the recycling… but I got lazy. I’m just trying to provide encouragement and inspiration by showing that each individual’s actions do add up, and the collective action of many individuals add up to even more. We each really do have the power to make a difference. But we have to exercise it.

So I am going to share some of the strategies that have worked for me:

Reject packaging, reject bags:
Remember we were taught the three Rs? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Well there are actually four. Number one is Reject. Recycling is last on the list, the worst option of the four. It encourages the manufacture of single-use disposable items – plastic bags, plastic packages, metal tins, glass jars – exactly what we should be rejecting. All these substances required energy to extract the resources from our natural environment (trees, petroleum, rock, metal), and energy to manufacture, and energy to transport to your home; they will still use up more energy to transport away again and to recycle them.

I have posted before that recycling is evil; all it does is make people feel good about their consumption. It’s not actually helping the big picture.

So, Refuse. Refuse to buy anything that your grocery store over-packages – for example, when peppers or cherries are plastic-wrapped on a styrofam tray. Don’t buy it. And tell the produce department why you are not buying it. If your store doesn’t listen to you, find other sources.

I know a lot of people justify getting plastic bags at the grocery store because they say they use them for garbage. And fair enough, to use one or two a week for garbage (because hopefully you are not producing more garbage than that). But if you find yourself with a kitchen cupboard or drawer jammed full of plastic bags, well… here’s my way of remembering to take my reusable bags to the store….

Punish yourself:
Yes, it is definitely hard to change habits, or to acquire new ones. Like remembering to carry those reusable bags. But if you let yourself off the hook every time you forget, you’re not going to learn, right? You have to punish yourself.

Usually I am on my bike so I have a backpack with me anyway. But when I am in a car, if I have forgotten my bag, I punish myself for it: I do not allow myself to accept a bag. I make as many  trips back and forth, from the store to the parking lot – tomatoes  or limes or whatever tumbling out of my hands – as I need to to get everything in the car. And same thing when I get to the house, multiple trips. It takes extra time and it’s a pain in the butt. But by punishing myself, it reminds me for next time. It’s a way to change my behaviour. Just saying “Darn, forgot the bag again!” and accepting the store’s plastic bags doesn’t change anything.

Make garbage a hassle:
I deliberately make it a real pain in the butt to have garbage. So I don’t really have a proper garbage bag in my kitchen. Instead, I reuse some food packaging that I was forced to buy (no, not plastic grocery bags – we are not forced to use those, that is a choice). Usually it is something like a potato chip bag (you just cannot buy potato chips without the bag) or a bag that pasta came in, or one of those thin plastic bags from the veggie department (I don’t use them at all for large or dry things like tomatoes, beans or broccoli, but I do for small things like cherries).

The little bag sits on the counter, and it gets in the way. It makes me not want to have garbage, because it is just a pain in the butt to have around. And even more of a pain in the butt if it gets full, and starts tipping over.

The garbage bag on the counter is a hassle. It makes me not want to produce garbage. But look at the photo: it’s working.

The power of the masses:
I know that it can feel like all of these small actions hardly make a difference. But this is where the power of the masses comes in. For a bit of a humorous example of that, check out this article in the Onion from last year: ‘How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?’ 30 Million People Wonder.

This concept, how the small actions of many individuals add up, was demonstrated to me in reverse a few weeks ago. I happened to have a lot of house guests over a period of two weeks. They are all fairly environmentally conscious people. But still, each one brought a couple of plastic bags into my house. By the time the last group left, my kitchen cupboard was stuffed full of plastic bags! No one had gone overboard with what the amount of plastic they brought in. But when you added it all up, it was a lot.

And that is what I mean: the power of the masses. It all adds up. Individuals’ small actions make a difference in the big picture. For the better, and for the worse.

So there, that is the power that we each have, that you have. Your actions may seem so small that they seem to be mere tokens. But they really do add up. Yes, it takes time. But this is important. These problems are not going to fix themselves.

Use your power.

These scarlet runner beans are not mine. But I took this photo today. It’s a garden that I bike past often on my training rides. Yesterday, I noticed that their plants are loaded with beans, whereas mine are still just flowering. So I came back home to look more closely at mine.

And what I saw was numerous dead-end stems. What should happen is that, as each flower is pollinated, the red petals fall off and a bean pod grows there. But where my beans should be, there is nothing. The stem dead-ends. So my beans are not pollinating.

And that, of course, made me think about the bees. We’ve all heard about the global bee crisis. Populations are dropping worldwide. Although the experts have some ideas on possible causes, no one is exactly sure what is going on.

But one recent study has found that cell phone signals may disorient bees. Bees are sensitive to the electromagnetic fields of cell phones. The cell phone signals can confuse them, causing them to swarm unnecessarily, and all of that extra activity may be fatal to the bees.

[My beans: note the dead-end stems below the flowers, where earlier flowers used to be. This is where the bean pod is supposed to grow - but there is nothing.] –>

There are other likely causes to the bee declines, too, such as air pollution (which also can disorient them) and fungal infections. But in this case, the other garden is only 3 or 4 km from my home in straight-line distance, so something like pollution or infection seems less likely. However, that other garden is located just past the edge of town, in more rural country – so the homes are spaced much farther apart. Which means cell phones also would be farther away from the bees.

I have scarlet runner beans growing on my balcony garden too, and I noticed that, although most of them also have not pollinated, a handful of stalks are producing beans. I also have lots of flowers growing right beside the beans: petunias and nasturtiums. Flowers are great bee attractants – so I wonder if the flowers have pulled in the few bees that are around, and those bees then did the bean flowers while they were up there.

It’s hard to know for sure. But I do remember hearing people talking in Tofino last year, too, about their beans not pollinating, and blaming it on the bees. Well, not on the poor bees themselves – they already have enough to deal with. But on the bee decline – which is almost certainly our fault, even if we don’t know exactly what it is we did this time.

Over 70% of the world’s most important food crops are pollinated by bees. I’ve heard it said that, if bees go extinct, humankind will be starving within three years. I don’t know if that’s strictly true. But it’s true enough that, even if you don’t care about biodiversity and ecosystems, even if you only care about your own personal needs, you should still worry about the bees.

On a happier note: When I was in my garden afternoon to take the picture of my dead-end stems for this post, a bee alighted right in my frame. A bit out of focus, but here he is. So at least there is one out there!

And so many people seem impressed by how “brave” I am. And that is so not true! I fear for my life a lot of the time. Just not when I am out there, in the wilderness. Honestly, out there is where I feel safest.

But this common reaction makes me reflect on what fear is. Or, more accurately, what leads to a perception of danger. Many of my girlfriends here in Port Alberni won’t go running on trails alone because they are afraid of “something” happening: a fall, a bear encounter. Yet they will go on long road-bike rides, 40 or 80 or even 100 km (my sporty girlfriends here are pretty impressive, I must say!)

I do rides like that too. But it’s doing road rides like that, with cars hurtling past – sometimes only inches away from my body – that makes me experience legitimate fear. Not being alone in the wilderness.

It seems to me that many people’s fear is not proportional to the actual level of danger. It is more about a comfort zone, and what they are used to. Honestly – in my 30 or so years of adventuring, in very wild places around the world, sometimes travelling with others and sometimes alone, I have come across only one serious accident: a hiker in Patagonia who had a very bad fall, and ultimately ended up having his lower leg amputated.

Then I go to some place like Toronto, and drive on those highways, the 401 and 400 and 407 etc. – I see thousands of people enclosed in metal and glass boxes zipping past one another at combined speeds of 200 km/h or more, apparently experiencing no fear! In spite of the fact that the radio is broadcasting a constant stream of info of serious traffic accidents, and that Ontario drivers simply get used to detouring past smashed-up cars every so often, some of which contain dead or injured bodies.

Honestly, in all of my wilderness trips, I have never detoured past a dead body. City drivers just get used to this. And then think I should experience fear in the wilderness.

I recall, back in 2000, when a drunk camper was bitten by a wolf on an island off of Tofino. The incident was headline news around the country. It happened that I had been photographing the wolves involved a few weeks earlier. So, next thing I knew I was fielding all of these media calls.

I talked to one editor in her high-rise in Toronto. She was horrified by the idea of these wild animals appearing from the bush and attacking. I tried put to it into perspective for her. Something like 3000 people are killed in motor vehicle accidents in Canada each year. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are bitten by dogs every year. On average, one person is killed by a wild animal across all of North America per year (a fraction of the number actually killed by domestic dogs).

But Canadians are used to dogs – just as they are used to cars (and car accidents). They have lost their fear of the situations that present true danger, and instead fear what they don’t know: wilderness or wolves or bears.

So what should we be afraid of? In my ideal world, we would all make the effort to become properly informed, and to define what truly are the dangers in our lives.

Ironically, the wolves that were involved in that attack provide an example. Those wolves had become habituated to humans. They had been around people so much that they had lost their natural fear of us. That is why I was able to photograph them, it is why they ended up close enough to a drunk camper to end up biting him, and it is why they were shot.

And that same habituation or desensitization is happening to us now. The things that are most dangerous to us are so intermingled with our daily lives that we do not fear them: fast food and lack of exercise; far too much sugar in the North American diet; cars and car accidents; our industrialized way of life and what that means for global warming and coming food shortages. These things are already killing thousands of people every year, and they will kill many, many thousands more.

These are all very scary to me. Much more so than cougars and wolves and bears.

There’s this land-sharing cooperative that I’m a member of, up the coast. A few times, an email has circulated around the group because a recent clearcut* is visible from our lots. That bothers some property owners.

Whereas for me, that one clearcut does not bother me any more than the many other recent clearcuts in Clayoquot Sound (UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve – and please note, there is no “P” on reserve). To me, cutting ancient forest down is not an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue about processes. Whether or not I ever lay eyes on any one specific clearcut, I understand what each clearcut means:

• in terms of lost habitat for wildlife,
• in terms of affects on the ocean via anadromous species (those that live in both fresh and salt water such as salmon) and debris runoff,
• in terms of effects upon our atmosphere and global ecosystem.

I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot this week, because of Canada’s decision to block the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention. Since the listing of hazardous substances can only be changed by consensus, it only takes one country to stop it.

And why would Canada do that? Because our government has some new, cutting-edge unpublished study that demonstrates that chrysotile asbestos does not actually cause cancer? Or because our Conservative government has already approved expansion of an asbestos mine in southern Québec, in a riding that they hope to wrestle away from the Bloc Québecois?

Yup.

But it’s not only on the federal level that this kind of decision-making is taking place. It seems to be the only way of thinking in the resource extraction industry: people employed in [fishing/logging/mining] don’t want to see their industry shut down because of what it would mean for their own personal jobs. (Intersting that they somehow avoid considering what kind of world their own personal children will grow up into).

But I see it here among the supposed environmentalists too. There has been a strong local movement on the west coast of Vancouver Island to block the proposed Catface open pit copper mine which, if it goes ahead, would be developed in the heart of Clayoquot Sound. I find it hard to rationalize the actions of people who use metals in their every-day life to block the development of a mine. Are we against mining? Or are we just against a mine in our own back yard?

I think these are important things to think about: every time we make a decision; every time we choose to take action, or not to take action.

And it’s not just about big industrial projects like logging and mining. There are decisions and actions that we make every day.

For example, plastic grocery bags: How could anyone who considers the issue, and not just their personal challenge of remembering to bring a bag (we remember our wallet and keys, how hard can it be?), not support the banning of unnecessary single-use items that harm the environment? (And don’t give me the “but I recycle” argument: Recycling is evil).

Personally, I don’t hold much hope for the future of humanity on this planet. And sadly, we’re going to take down a lot of other species with us (we already are).

But if we are to have any hope at all, we need to look at the big picture. We need to examine our each and every action, and make our decisions based on examination of the whole and looking out for the long-term – not on just how something will affect us, personally, right here and right now.

Where do you stand? Do you have any stories to share about your “big picture”?

*I understand the word “clearcut” has been redefined because supposedly BC no longer undertakes clearcut logging. As I understand it, these patches where the forest has been cut and cleared are now supposed to be labelled “openings”, so in this post I use the word “clearcut” informally.

This disconnect, between our knowledge and our actions, is really difficult for me to understand. To my way of thinking, when you see something that can go wrong in the future, you act to prevent it.

I finished my PhD in 1992, nearly 20 years ago. That same year, a group of 1700 of the world’s leading scientists published a letter warning humanity that we must change how we live if we are to avert disaster. That letter began:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

I don’t think that this week’s Guardian article will be “news” to any earth scientist or climate scientist. We have known all this for 20 years or more. And on some level, everyone – scientist or not – knows it.

So what I don’t get is how people can refuse to act.

I don’t even have children, but I look at the children around me: my little neighbours who knock on my door and ask me to ride my bike with them, my little niece in Ontario, my friends’ children. I want these kids to have happy lives, to grow up into a healthy world. I can only imagine the love that a parent must feel for their child – but in my imagining, that love is so strong that I would do anything, anything, to be able to promise my child a secure and happy future. But people aren’t. (OK, some people take feel-good steps like recycling – but I am talking about the steps that effect real and meaningful change).

There was an insightful article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, too, by columnist Ross Gittins, who commented:

“It’s a sore test of faith when people put power bills before their children’s future.”

We know all of these things. We know them, but – just like the smoker who means to quit, or the diabetic who keeps nibbling on sweets – that knowledge always comes with a “but.” But I was in a hurry. But I don’t have a choice. But it’s too hard. But I like my [insert noun here]. But everyone else does it.

We have the knowledge. We know that we must drop our consumption of resources and our greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically if we are to survive. We know this, yet we are doing little about it, far too little. What is stopping us?

For most of human history, the world around us has changed very, very slowly.

It’s a bit hard to define exactly when humans first appeared on this planet, because there is no exact date; rather, it was a gradual evolution over many millions of years. But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s call it 200,000 years of human history, which is about how long anatomically modern humans have walked this Earth.

For most of that history, our ancestors existed mainly as nomadic hunters and gatherers, walking in small family bands (or societies) through small territories in which they collected their food. Communities were oriented around “place” – they didn’t have any travel options anyway, right? – and their knowledge of that place: seasonal changes, plant growth, wildlife movements, was key to their success in finding food… and, so, to survival.

By around 10,000 years ago, following the end of the last Ice Age, many of these societies around the world were making the transition to agriculture. Now they were even more bonded to their place, and their knowledge of natural cycles such as seasons, weather and growing cycles were even more critical to their survival.

Connection to place was not simply an airy-fairy spiritual thing – even though rituals and spiritualities did, in many cultures, develop to symbolize this connection (e.g. the Thunderbird on the Mountain, or the Pachamama). Connection to place was a practical key to survival. And caring for that place – ensuring that wild animals were not hunted to extinction, and that soil remained fertile for subsequent years and subsequent generations -  was a logical key to survival.

Up until only a few hundred years ago, most people on Earth never ventured far from their birthplace. It’s only just over 500 years ago that Columbus embarked on his voyages of “discovery”. By the 1700s and 1800s more of a mass movement of humanity started to occur, as Europeans set out on journeys of colonization. But even these were mostly one-of trips: people emigrated (mainly from Europe; also some from Asia and – not by their own choice – some from Africa) to new lands where they made their new homes and developed their new connections, learning what to hunt and how to cultivate crops.

But what’s happened now? In the last century (or less!) we have arrived to this state where nearly everyone in our western society is mobile. Most of us no longer live where we grew up – or our children no longer live near us. Many of us have moved several times in our lives already. And, more significantly, we know that we have the option of moving again. Our lives and our communities are no longer centred upon a place.

Caring for place used to be critical to our survival. It was in our face every day, our place. If we didn’t care for it, the consequences would be felt quickly enough: no animals to hunt, or crop failures.

Our increased mobility, this last century (which, if you take 200,000 years as the length of time humans have walked the Earth, means only 0.05% of our history) has affected our connection to place. In fact, I would argue that it has pretty much destroyed it.

And once we lose that connection: our knowledge of natural cycles and any awareness of our impact on our place, it suddenly becomes much easier for us to damage our place. We no longer understand the consequences of our actions.

What do you think?
Do you have a place you feel connected to?
Do you still live there?

Well, it is summer. But in spite of the waves of warm and sunny weather that have hit Tofino (some years it never gets hot here!) I have still been writing a lot. Just not on this blog.

That’s because I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole social media experiment. It is over a year, now, since I launched myself on both Twitter (@jwindh) and out here in the blogosphere. And there really is a learning curve with all of that; there’s much more to social media than just understanding the technology, how to Tweet and Retweet, how to post to your blog or comment on someone else’s.

So I’ve slowed down on my own blog this summer in order to rethink where I am going with all of this: what I am trying to do with it, who I am trying to reach.

I see a lot of authors out there who blog about writing – or how to self-publish, or how to promote yourself or your book. That’s interesting to me as a writer, and I like reading and commenting on their blogs. But it is not really what I want to be blogging about.

But what does interest me – as a writer, photographer, and broadcaster – is thinking how everything is connected. And that’s the angle I will be taking with the relaunch of my blog – posting some thought-provoking little pieces to get the brains churning, and hopefully to stimulate some discussion, too.

So please tune in August 3rd, for the launch of the Jacqueline Windh Blog v.2.0.

I’ve firmly come to believe that some people are just genetically wired that way. That’s why we can’t help becoming activists – we are genetically programmed such that we just cannot stop and do nothing when we see something is wrong.

But it is hard to live with, when you feel compelled to act on everything you see that could be better. Partly because it distracts you from other things that also should matter in your life (like earning an income, or personal relationships). And partly because it is frustrating when you hit roadblocks, and can’t influence or exact the changes you see are needed…

I’ve had a really tough time lately. I’m in a bit of a love-hate relationship with my town, Tofino. You’d think a tiny little community on the idyllic surf washed west coast of Vancouver Island would be paradise to live in, wouldn’t you? To visit maybe. But not to live in.

I feel like I’ve been battling to “help” my community – to stand up for residents’ rights, like having affordable housing, or not having to pay more for water than our for-profit businesses pay. And, for the last three and a half years, I have been using my earth sciences background (PhD in Structural Geology) to try to help our community come up with an emergency plan for the coming earthquake/tsunami, that is better than the current one – which actually puts people’s lives in greater danger than if they just ignored instructions. (All of these battles are chronicled on the Tofino Residents blog, which I started but am pretty ready to give up on).

So I’ve been feeling really down: wondering why, when I take the time to volunteer my expertise for the community, it must be a battle. Why I feel compelled to fight the battle, in spite of the opposition. Why there even is opposition and antagonism to simply getting a plan that helps my friends, my community…

It’s not only Tofino. I feel really down about the world. About global warming, about right-wing journalists who are not even scientists but who do their best to bamboozle the public into believing there is even any legitimate debate about human-caused climate change, about the oil spill. I left my high-paying job in the mining industry (yup, that’s right! that’s were I used to earn big bucks!) ten years ago, to earn a pittance as a writer/photographer (and nothing as an activist) in order to try to right some of the wrongs on our planet.

But lately, I’ve been feeling really negative about it all. Sure, the difference I make – be that on Tofino’s tsunami plan or on global environmental issues – is ultimately positive. But it is so negligible on the scale of things. I don’t feel like I am making any real difference.

This week, though, when I was feeling my lowest, I stepped out my front door – and there on my doorstep was a big heart drawn in chalk on the pavement. I knew right away who had drawn it – a little 5 year old girl who lives two doors down. The week before, I had helped her learn to draw a heart with chalk by herself, as I watched her sister learn to ride her bike without training wheels all by herself.

I mostly ride my own bike, rather than drive, so I have got to know the six kids here on my little townhouse driveway . They’re all between 5 and 7 years old. (They talk to me, because they don’t have to flee off the driveway for me and my bike, like they do when a car comes in). I always make time for them, even when I am busy. The last few months, they have been knocking on my door, asking me to “come out and play” with them. I nearly always do, no matter how busy I am – even if only for a few moments.

In my utterly crappy mood, that chalk heart on my doorstep the other day just warmed my jaded and cynical heart.

Maybe I am setting my goals too high, trying to change things that are just too unchangeable. But that chalk heart made me realize that I am making a difference in this world – at least on the scale of those kids’ lives.

And so they make a difference in mine.