My youngest son was planning our July canoe trip and we wanted to get a "reliable" long range forecast. So, with complete trust, I searched for my favourite weather report by typing in "Environment Canada long range weather forecast". To avoid the Google fiasco, I had just started using DuckDuckGo as my search engine, and up popped a site titled, "Weather in Canada Observer" with the explanatory subtitle: "The long range weather forecast issued by Environment Canada is vital to the economy."

Now, whenever you see an opening like that on a site supposedly belonging to Environment Canada (EC), one of two things have happened – either the Harper government has completely subjugated the EC staff, or it's a wannabe site using EC links to disguise the real agenda. Curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on the site. I was immediately drawn to his sidebar titled: "Climate Change?" which blares a banner headline: "Causes Of Global Warming
A Raging Debate! There is strong disagreement on the real causes of global warming!"  Having been immersed in synthesizing climate change data for the last 35 years, all my warning flags went up. 

Turns out, this in NOT an Environment Canada (EC) website although it makes enough references to EC, cleverly stating in bold print that the "official version" of the weather forecast is produced by EC. This is a private site, run by moderator Claude Jollet, an entrepeneur who claims to be a former planning advisor to major industrial and commercial clients, specializing in weather related operational planning issues. He currently promotes web-based publishing.  He claims to hold a B.Sc. specializing in business process analysis and automation. On his LinkedIn page, he also claims to have received his education from the Environment Canada School of Meteorology from 1966-1974 (there is no Environment Canada School of Meteorology) when he was actually working for the Ministry of Transport. So just how good is the weather science on this site?

There is no doubt that Mr. Jollet has a passion for weather, affectionately referring to himself as "the weather guy", and is obviously having a lot of fun in his retirement posting his blogs. However, his claims that he worked with Environment Canada for somewhere between 15 or 17 or 31 years (depending on which part of his site you research) – are simply not true. Mr. Jollet  did, to his credit, take meteorlogical courses while working with the Ministry of Transport back in the '60's and '70's, and did take two courses through Environment Canada in the '80's, but, alas, Mr. Jollet is neither a meteorologist nor a climate change scientist. The science does not pass the sniff test of the 3 P's – practicing, published, and peer-reviewed.

Mr. Jollet and I have since exchanged emails and he was courteous enough to publish my short rebuttal about climate change deniers, accompanied, of course, by his lengthy editorial essay defending his right to publish his opinion. Garbage in, garbage out as the saying goes.

Claude certainly does not appear to get his information from NASA, NOAA, the MET Centres in Hadley and Bern, nor the IPCC where over 95% of practicing, published, peer-reviewed scientists actually agree on the real causes of climate change – an acceleration of natural climate change processes caused by th e net effect of human activities. Rrather "the Observer" seems to get its science details from sources like the much discredited magazine New Scientist, a non-peer reviewed journal of science related ideas and opinions. You are what you eat; ten mililon flies can't be wrong.

Select your websites with care; I'm back to the real Environment Canada site, hoping they can succeed in their struggle to remain strong and free…

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon

NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Agency; NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; MET Centres in Hadley and Bern – accredited meteorlogical centres in Europe; IPCC – UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

In 1989, Skid launched Global Perspectives: the Periwinkle Project. Dr. Milton McClaren, Simon Fraser University, described Skid’s presentation as “one of the most powerful educational change catalysts in Canada.”  This is the story that began it all…

*****

I have been asked many times why I chose The Periwinkle Project for the title of the Global Perspectives Conference. In August of 1988, at the Choices for the Future Symposium in Denver, Colorado, Dr, Jay Hair, then president of the National Wildlife Federation, shared this moving and very personal story with his audience.  It is burned into my memory, like a heartbeat, and I remember every word like taking a breath. 

Jay had been delivering a passionate and humourous keynote to the conference delegates, when he suddenly stopped, became very quiet and took a deep breath. He looked up at the audience with tears in his eyes and said: I am going to share something that I have not shared in public before, but it is what drives me to do what I do to take care of this planet.

This is my retelling of Jay's story…

Just before school began in September of 1984, Jay's daughter, then nine years old, came to her father complaining about a painful growth in her groin area.  She was taken to the doctor who examined her and reported that there appeared to be no major concern; the growth was surgically removed. Jay's daughter did not get better, however, and was rushed to the hospital a short time later. She spent the next forty days, severely ill, under the care of Duke University's highly respected children's medical team. After another operation to take lung tissue samples for analysis, Jay was informed by the pediatric oncologist that they couldn't find any cancer related problems. On the next Monday in October, the doctors told Jay that his daughter had four days to live.

I remember his voice cracking as he said: You have no idea what it is like to hear those words spoken about your own daughter. And so for the next four days he kept vigil by her bedside, suddenly realizing what the most important thing in the world was to him, wondering how often he had been away from home campaigning to save the world when a little girl just wanted her daddy at home to say goodnight.

On Friday of that same week, the Duke medical team finally discovered the source of his daughter's illness – she had a very rare childhood blood cancer, T-cell lymphoma (at that time only two other cases had been reported in the U.S.A.). They told Jay they had been researching an experimental drug that might work on this cancer, and at the eleventh hour Jay gave them the go-ahead.

In 1988, Jays' daughter entered high school as a healthy young freshman. The drug that put her diseasse into remission was one of the cancer fighting alkaloids developed from the Rosy Periwinkle of Madagascar – a vincristine/vinblastine distillate. At the time Jay told his story, over 90% of the tropical rainforests of Madagascar had been destroyed, devastating the native habitat of the Rosy Periwinkle.

*****

When I first heard this story, I was struck by the paradox of the human condition. Just as that one tiny plant is now dependent on wise human stewardship for its survival, so are we dependent on that plant to save our lives. All things are truly connected, like the ripple of a butterflies wing through the universe. A species claiming such high levels of intelligence, yet bound on a course of global suicide makes absolutely no sense. Viewed from outer space, we must appear a parasitic growth on the surface of a once healthy cell in the cosmic bloodstream. Natural Earth cycles of greenhouse and ice-age, of biological explosions and extinctions are acceptable; deliberate acceleraton of these processes by a species claiming intelligent choice is unacceptable.

We desperately need to move beyond our anthropcentric view of the Earth, and develop a deep ethic through which we recognize the intrinsic value of all organisms on this planet regardless of the specific benefits to humankind. It is absolutely natural for humans to view this planet and its systems in terms of their own survival. While we can philosophize about spiritual planetary eco-relationships, in crisis we return to our basic needs as animals. We must come to terms with the fact that we need a healthy planet to survive. This planet, with all its wonderfully interconnected systems, will continue far beyond the abuses of humanity – but an enlightened and environmentally literate society will leave behind a much healthier planet, rich in biological and elemental diversity, to the generations of living things yet to come.

Thus, the selection of The Periwinkle Project as the title of my conferences and presentations. It reflects the fact that we cannot escape our humanity and our responsibility; it also acknowledges that we are interconnected and intedependent. Every system on this planet moves together into the third millenium. We alone have choices to make.

Skid Crease, Canada 1989

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I first wrote this 23 years ago, inspired by a wonderful educator named William Hammond. I would not change a word today. I remember after I printed off the first copy, I took out my Bruce Cockburn tape – I knew Bill would probably play Cat Stevens "Peace Train – and put on "If I had a Rocket Launcher."  Play it again, Sam.

Skid Crease, Caledon, 2012

Poscript: Dr. Jay Hair passed away in 2002 at the age of 56 from bone-marrow cancer. We accept the torch, and will carry on.

The following story was created after I asked my 12 year old son what he would say to the children of a country’s leader, one who had abrogated his environmental responsibilites, if he met those children in the future. His response is the quote written in bold at the end of the story. The children of today are wiser than the children of light.

*****

From the Teachings of the Elders:

“I will punish the children for the sins of the father to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 20:5

“For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Galatians 6:7, 8

“What goes around, comes around.” Justin Timberlake

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William had just passed his fiftieth birthday. He had spent most of his adult life known as The Speaker for the Dead, the one who went into the razed and grieving communities and cleansed their guilt by telling the truth of their loves and losses, their sins and graces, and their pain was eased.  Twenty years ago, after the collapse of the inland fisheries, he had moved north of Superior, found a spring fed lake in a tiny remote valley and built his cabin. He became known as the Guardian of the Spring. To those who came with respect he shared the water freely. They were allowed to quench their thirst, and happily carried their water jugs, filled to the brim, back to their shelters.

The world had changed a great deal in his fifty years. Agriculture in the Great Plains had been devastated by decades of drought, the coastline of the Maritimes had been buried under rising seas, and the Great Quake of 2033 had destroyed the oil pipelines to the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico. Ontario had been annexed by New York, and Quebec had long ago separated to preserve a just society. After the Great Western Separation, Alberta and British Columbia had disintegrated into warring fiefdoms, and only Newfoundland seemed to prosper as an ice-free Arctic encourgaged European trawlers to it’s ports.

With the death of the oil economy, North America had descended into chaos and anarchy and the remnants of the central governments disappeared. But north of Superior, climate change had extended the growing season and the winds of change had been kind. A few small settlements prospered here, and one was in William’s valley.

As Guardian of the Spring, it was William’s responsibility and honour to share the water freely with those who walked the Earth lightly. But more often than not Marauders appeared who had heard of the pure waters and verdant forests. The Marauders had respect for nothing and their cruelty was renowned. Then it was William’s responsibility and honour to rid the Earth of their presence. William’s reputation spread, and the Marauders stopped coming to his valley.  There was easier prey elsewhere.

Then there were the others who came from time to time. They were called The Shunned, the children of the politicians who had sacrificed the temple of the Earth to the money lenders. They were adults now, cursed to walk the Earth begging forgiveness for the evil that their parents had visited upon the water planet and all its living things.

It was the supreme irony that on April 22, 2050, two of the shunned, Ben and Rachel, came stumbling out of the mist and down the forest paths of William’s valley. They were seeking the absolution of the Speaker for the Dead. He watched them through his spotting scope and recognized them immediately.  They were the lowest of The Shunned, the children of the Great Destroyer, the one whose ignorance and greed had sacrificed the greatest country on Earth.

As they passed each shelter, the people turned their backs. The Shunned were cold and hungry and thirsty, but not a single person offered them the slightest comfort. They approached William’s cabin cautiously; the Speaker for the Dead, the Guardian of the Spring had become a mythical hero, the one who spoke truth to power, and they feared him.  They stopped at the front porch of the cabin and waited. Only the Speaker could release them from this curse.

William opened the door slowly and stepped out into the early morning light. Ben and Rachel held out their open palms in supplication and were about to speak, when William raised his arm for silence.  He took a deep breath, remembered the sacrifices his mother and father had made to heal the Earth, and spoke the words he had been waiting fifty years to say,

“Children of my enemy, why have you come?

I offer no forgiveness for your father’s sins.“

He turned his back and left them there, unforgiven in this world. The circle had been closed.

*****

Skid Crease, Caledon