I recently penned a Letter to the Editor for our local Caledon Enterprise newspaper, entitled, "It's time to stop being polite to stupid people." It was in reaction to a series of other back and forth letters from pet owners and step-in-doggy-doo hikers complaining about dog rights and dog waste and it was all just so stupid. Come on, if you have a pet and it dumps in public, scoop it up and dispose of it in the appropriate container – this is NOT a discussion item!

I then began to reflect on all the other stupid people that bother me – the ones who litter, who leave their cars/vans/trucks idling outside of homes or stores or schools. the cell phone distracted drivers (also smoking, sipping coffee and putting on makeup or a combination of all as I once witnessed), the Stop sign cruisers, the school zone speeders, the ATV/snowmobile racers in residential neighbourhoods and parks, the snow shovellers who push their load into the street, and the triple space parkers with their big butt pick-ups.

Now, I know none of us are perfect. but let me give you an example. Outside our local convenience store one hot summer night, I encountered a person who diagonally parked his pickup truck across two special needs wheelchair parking spaces, and left the truck running. I went into the store and asked who had done this. A man belligerently answered, "Me, you got a problem?" I responded, "No, but I think the spaces are reserved for the PHYSICALLY challenged." His mouth dropped open, the store owner guffawed, and I left.

Once, after a series of environmental speaking engagements, Dr. Wiliam Fyfe took me aside at intermission and broke down. "Skid," he said, "I've been lecturing about environmental issues for 30 years and nothing is getting any better!" He proceeded to list off the decline in topsoil, fisheries, forests, productive farmland, aquifers, and so on and then grabbed me by the arm. "We smile and bow at all these international conferences and treaties while Japan and Norway and Iceland continue to kill off the great whales with impunity. It's time to stop being poilte to stupid people."

From the global oceans to our own backyards, it's time to stop being polite to stupid people. Period.

******

Skid Crease, Caledon

When Bolivia's parliament passed the Pachamama, or "Mother Earth Law", it heralded a new era of environmental awareness and action. Guided by Evo Morales, an indigenous leader elected to an absolute majority in 2005, Bolivia has carefully moved toward the Pachamama law, challenging both the UN and multinational mining companies in the process. This is one of the first laws that grants legal rights to nature, so that the government, not just the Lorax, speaks for the trees.

Stephen Harper is busy drafting his own version, know as the "Oilpatchapapa Law". This law, carefully drafted by the Conservative Reform Alliance Party of Canada with the full approval of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, gives oil companies unfettered rights to extract, export and profit from any oil that it can find anywhere, anytime, under or on Canadian soil.

Wait, that already passed with the last Omnibus Budget Bill. Thank you Joe Oliver and Ducks Unlimited, whose former executive now sits on the National Energy Board that just granted approval to the Northern Gateway Pipeline. 

Sorry Mom, sorry kids. Bad daddy.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

The vote wasn't even close. An overwhelming 1,614 members of the jury found David Suzuki not guilty of "seditious libel for defaming and discrediting Canada" in his battle to protect Earth for current and future generations. A mere 117 disgruntled extreme right-wing Conservatives and extinction economists voted against his carbon manifesto.

Laurie Brown's play, The Trial of David Suzuki, was held, significantly, the week before Remembrance Day at the Royal Ontario Museum complete with real environment commissioners, economists, judges and the children who will inherit the earth.

While we drive at full speed into the twenty-first century looking in the rearview mirror, Suzuki is focused clearly on the brick wall ahead of us. He knows full well, as do all of the muzzled government scientists, that our forests were never the creditable carbon sink that the Martin Liberals spun, that our tar sands were hardly the Ethical Oil that the Harper Conservatives spun, and that the impacts of accelerating climate change are very real, as the IPCC has been predicting. The jury got it right for once.

This mock court was only the first in a series, I hope. I can't wait for The Trial of Stephen Harper.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

This past week I made my annual pilgrimage to recharge my soul at the Ontario Nature Youth Summit. It was my privilege to be invited to workshop at the first Summit held at Cedar Glen YMCA four years ago. Now utilizing the incomparable Geneva Park YMCA site on Lake Simcoe, the Ontario Nature staff continue to bring together an increasing number of intelligent, passionate, and environmentally literate young leaders from across the province of Ontario to protect and conserve our incredible planet.

I must be doing something right, because they keep inviting me back. These are not the inspirational keynotes of old, but a simple opportunity to be children in the woods once again. We walk through the meadows and forests of whatever site is hosting us, and celebrate the wonder and mystery of the natural world, including ourselves. Then we take home the challenge – what next? What do I do in my own life to use my voice, with my own passion, to pay back the gift of being lucky enough to live and learn in Canada. But for a roll of the dice, every participant is keenly aware, they could have been born a young girl in Afghanistan with a totally different future.

I think I am for them the living proof of the old Barry Lopez adage: that sometimes it takes someone much older and wiser to affirm for children, without a word being spoken, what a deep fierce pride we can take in all is, this celebration of life that is all around us, and that we can grow old knowing that it will never be lost.

Two decades ago I had a children's story published about a frog and a snake who just wanted to be friends – it is a wonderful old West African folktale that Annick Press published as In the Great Meadow.  As we explored our environment, one student walked in from the meadow with a leopard frog perched in the palm of her hand. Another approached from the other side with a garter snake coiled in her hand. They held their hands together and the frog and snake nestled in beside each other. "You make a wish and I'll make a wish too, and may your wish and my wish both come true."

I can now grow old, knowing that this will never be lost.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

Check out "the thousand words" in my story section…