On global impact

Two decades of inaction on climate change from Lib and Con governments alike sure have put Canada on the map internationally:

Last Monday afternoon, standing outside the Houses of Parliament in London in Parliament square, I held my cell phone aloft with a hundred other protesters, taking part in a “climate flash mob,” a seemingly spontaneous but pre-arranged protest against the British government’s inaction on climate change. Everyone was there to flood MPs with phone calls demanding a fair and effective treaty at Copenhagen this December.

Nearby a man stood, holding an upside-down Canadian flag.

“Sorry to bother you—but why are you holding the Canadian flag upside down?” I asked, a little timidly (I figured with my accent he might clock my Canuck identity and tell me off).

“Flying a flag upside down is the internationally recognized symbol of distress,” he answered. “We are facing a climate emergency—and there is no better symbol for that than the nation of Canada.”

Given that Canada has higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than any other G8 nation, and was branded the “Colossal Fossil” at climate talks in Poznan, Poland, last year for blocking efforts to arrive at an effective treaty on climate change, I couldn’t argue with him.