Arctic Climate Crisis Journey 2006

A seventy-five year old grandmother's journey to the arctic to learn what effect of global warming and the loss of the Polar Ice Cap will have for the Inuit People of the North, as well as the people of the entire planet. http://www.dorothycutting.ca

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Last night in Whitehorse

Well, I'm getting ready to head north for Dawson, taking two days to get there, so I won't get too tired. Arthritis has flared up during the last few days, making it a bit difficult to sleep at night. But it comes and goes, and I hope I'm about over this bout. I've liked hanging out in this really nice town, especially getting a chance to have a couple of meals with my remarkable Salt Spring Island friend Bonnie, who has just returned from Tanzania, where she made several wonderful things happen. But duty knocks, or is that "opportunity?" And it will feel good to be on the road again, never knowing what beauties or surprises are in store.

I still feel the same wanderlust I first experienced in 1964, when I drove my children across the US from Florida to Disneyland in a slow-moving second-hand VW camper. What a trip that was. And how much I learned from self-guiding trails and the many park rangers we listened to in the evening, the most important thing being a passionate love of the natural world and a profound sense for its fragility and importance.

Our Prime Minister gave two interesting talks while he was in London, England last Friday. At breakfast he announced that "Canada is committed to the Kyoto Protocol" (Randall Palmer for Reuters News Service), but then at dinner the same evening, he became positively poetic about the tar sands project, saying that "it is an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China's Great Wall. Only bigger."

Hasn't anyone told him the tar sands enterprise accounts for one third of all the CO2 emissions in Canada? How can we take his statement that he supports Kyoto seriously.

Our "Call Stephen Harper: Save Kyoto" flyer has been revised. It now reads: "Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to hear from all Canadians to ACTIVELY support Kyoto."

For those who might have misplaced his phone number, it's 613-922-4211. If you know someone who can't afford the long distance charges, tell them to e-mail me at dorothy@dorothycutting.ca and I'll pay for the call.

Of course, there's always hope that Mr. Harper will get a toll-free number. He needs to know how we Canadians feel in order to do his job.

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