For future’s sake, join the Blue Dot Tour

By Jacob Kearey-Moreland Orillia Packet & Times

More than 100 nations on Earth recognize the right to live in a healthy environment. Canada does not, yet.

The Blue Dot Tour, launched by geneticist and grandfather David Suzuki, seeks to enshrine this right in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, furthermore obligating all levels of government to respect this foundational human right.

The plan is simple. Countless groups are forging community partnerships and municipal declarations to this end. One of the first out of the gate is Blue Dot Simcoe County. Why not join us for our next meeting Wednesday at Lakehead University in Orillia from 5:30 to 7 p.m. to plot next steps? Action plans are developing and being shared widely. Add hundreds of municipal declarations together and we’ll get provinces on board and, soon, the nation. It won’t be hard. Who would dare oppose this peaceful declaration of interdependence? Businesses will thrive in a healthy environment or choose to die alongside it.

As famous astronomer and author Carl Sagan noted, “The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.”

Sagan’s poem Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space provides a bounty of inspiration and humbling perspectives. Sagan wrote it in response to the first images of Earth, taken by satellites from the outer regions of our solar system. In the photo, Earth is no bigger than a pixel, “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Our existence depends on the health of the biosphere. We are radically altering the atmospheric composition, compromising freshwater bodies and terrestrial ecosystems. We are undermining the basis of our shared existence. These times have no precedent.

There are more than seven billion of us earthlings incubating, scurrying about, working, warring, wanting and munching away at the insides of our mother’s womb. At this pace, she will be dead before our birth into this wondrous universe.

Those of us born and raised in this ecocide culture are acutely aware of Earth’s limitations. The way things stand, we have the choice to eat fish now or never eat fish again. We’ve read history books about collapsed fisheries, clear-cut forests, acidified oceans, climate change and the annihilation of species. We stand now at an epic turning point in this history of humanity, a point of clarity, maturity. We can celebrate our oneness or bemoan our nonsense. It’s time for us feasting caterpillars to become butterflies. Remember those brightly coloured, large-winged, fluttering insects that used to grace our gardens? Fellow earthlings, let’s metamorphose.

Foundational laws were laid down centuries ago, when it took months to cross the ocean. Now, astronauts orbit the earth in 90 minutes and are suiting up to visit Mars. Our current trajectory will soon render Earth uninhabitable for human beings. No joke.

The dominant culture needs a rapid infusion of indigenous values and world views if it is to survive this century. Canadians must no longer sit idle as our nation’s first peoples have their natural, human and constitutional rights surreptitiously usurped from them because of their unwavering commitments to Mother Earth and the next seven generations. Proud Canadians, pause and reflect on our nation’s direction. Are we sovereign people or are we a resource colony beholden to foreign corporations? Look closer at our constitution.

If we do not have a healthy environment — clean air, fresh water and healthy food — what do we have?

Jacob Kearey-Moreland is a local resident and gardener. He can be contacted atjacobkeareymoreland@gmail.com.