Climate, Copenhagen, and the world: We've come a long way, baby

sign at Copenhagen conference on climate change

photo by Maurita Prato

Things are brewing and building to a climax at this week's conference at Copenhagen. Will world leaders decide on a "survival pact" (let's get serious about the future of humanity and do something about it) or a "suicide pact" (let's chicken out and blow this opportunity to truly take care of the planet before it's too late).

As I write this, some of the campaigners and activists that I follow on Twitter, who are reporting on the proceedings at Copenhagen - Kris Krug, Jason Mogus, Jason Barnett, Joe Solomon, The Uptake - are alternately despairing and determined. But no one knows whether a last-minute "Real Deal" can actually happen.

Now people are saying: what next? What happens after Copenhagen, regardless of the outcome?

What happens is: we keep building the movement of the millions around the globe who are speaking out, joining together, becoming a part of the wave of change that is needed, until the wave is the whole world.

Regardless of what happens at Copenhagen, our survival on the earth requires changes from all of us.

But I have hope. I have been around awhile now, and we have come a long way, baby.

Twenty years ago at Clayoquot, we leaders of the blockade were publicly labelled Eco-Terrorists when we sang and danced on logging roads. There were about twenty-five of us in 1992, fighting against major international corporations. And then we'd hear about things coming down the road like climate change, and I wondered how in heck we would ever get to the mass awareness needed - to make the changes we would need to make -  when we ragtag bunch with no resources were being publicly ostracized for caring about our little corner of the planet.

Twenty years is not a long time for change in the human race. But we have changed. We have come a long way, baby. There aren't just a handful of people who are taking action. We are millions. We are growing exponentially. No matter what happens at Copenhagen, this movement is growing and we will not be stopped until we have woken up enough of humanity to join us as we endeavour to save ourselves.

Join us.

More info:
www.avaaz.org
Kris Krug, Jason Mogus, Jason Barnett, Joe Solomon, The Uptake

An open letter to Stephen Harper

Dear Mr. Harper,


Please breathe deeply , Mr Harper, and tell me something, if you'd be so kind.
It's about climate change, and Copenhagen. I'm really glad you're going.
I'd like you to forget the science, for a bit. Let’s forget, for a moment, whether you “believe” in climate change or not, and just answer this one thing, as you breathe deeply for me - 

Mr. Harper, is the air clean, like when you were a kid?

Is there a good amount pollution in our atmosphere now? Or should we add more without thinking much about it.

How much longer can we keep adding to it?  

Because it’s not just disappearing, vanishing, going to another planet, magically leaving our atmosphere.

Nope, it stays there. And next year we add more, and next and next.

And regardless of whether or not this has any effect whatsoever on our climate (though it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t, frankly), it just can’t be good for our human lungs.

So what do you think? Can we wait?

Breathe deeply, Mr. Harper, and tell me. Maybe we should act on climate change - if not for the climate and humanity's, than for our own lungs. And our kids. 

You know rates of asthma and lung diseases are rising. 

It's not going to magically get better.

Here's your chance.


On behalf of the lungs of all Canadians, I remain,

Yours Sincerely,

Vanessa LeBourdais

Port Moody, BC

Teachers rave about littering play

It really warms my heart to listen to these principals and teachers speak so enthusiastically about our littering-vandalism-graffiti play Clean Up Your Act. Now in its 12th year of touring Metro Vancouver elementary schools, Clean Up Your Act teaches kids how to "take care of this place" - one of the goals of most schools student responsibility codes.

I toured with Clean Up Your Act for ten years. Now Sara Holt has taken my place. Lucky Sara gets to dump garbage on Ian's head twice a day.

Our Climate Change Anthem

We've written a new climate change anthem. Check it out! I wrote and recorded the song, and did a mashup from videos from around the world, submitted to 350.org, a global organization for climate change activism. Sing it, share it!

We're on CNN!

A clip from our video from World Climate Day (see the October 24 post, below) was used in the CNN coverage of the event! How amazing is that? We uploaded the video shortly after we got home from the event, to the site of the group that organized the world-wide events - 350.org. Our clip is the one with the girl (name unknown!) holding up a climate action bumper sticker. That's my music playing underneath. On CNN. (!)

It is very inspiring to see how 350.org managed to organize this world wide event using social media and the internet and to see the power of positive connection that can happen between people as a result.

World Climate Action Day

Bridge to a Cool Planet

Today, over 5200 events were held around the world - from Africa to Australia to Asia to Canada and every place in between. In over 150 countries, people around the globe stood up to be counted on climate change, telling our leaders that we must ratify the climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December in order to save our planet. This is the biggest event ever held in the world. People all around the world are united in our desire to take action on climate change.

Let yourself be counted. Check in at www.350.org for the next opportunity to get involved.

In Vancouver, the action was called Bridge to a Cool Planet.

Music for the ocean....

Recently I had the good fortune to be able to offer some of my music, which had literally been sitting on the shelf for years, to the service of the ocean.

My friends photographer Chris Jordan, cinematographer Jan Vozelinek and filmmaker Bill Weaver took a journey to Midway Island, smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the world. They were there to document, with a writer and a poet, the massive amount of plastic that is in a place so far from civilization that there should be no plastic at all.

I met Chris, Jan and Bill at the Media That Matters Conference at Hollyhock in May, I realized that I wanted to give more of my music in service to social change. As I listened to the tweets of their journey, I realized they might be able to use some more music, and I had a whack of mine which had literally been sitting on the shelf for years.

The cinematography is breathtaking, belying the tragedy all around. Enjoy the videos, then read more about the Journey to Midway.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Video by Bill Weaver. Cinematography by Jan Vozenilek. Voiceover by Chris Jordan. Interviewee: Matt Brown. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.