National Day of Action demonstrators petition government to address climate emergency

As part of a National Day of Action, a small group gathered outside of Portage-Lisgar M.P. Candice Bergen's office in Morden on Friday in a call to action for all government leaders to put down their partisan stripes, and work together to address what they described as the "climate emergency".

Marilyn Houser Hamm was there as part of a contingent with Mennonite Church Manitoba's Climate Action Working Group, and explained the messaging on their signs calling for a "just transition".

"A just transition isn't campaigning to be on one side or another on something. A just transition is saying we all need to engage in something now very, very soon. Our best energies right now, that we're hearing from the scientific community, is we have eight years to transform our economy from a fossil fuel economy to a passive economy."

Approximately 75 letters were collected, or mailed, to MP Bergen's office expressing concern over the atmospheric river responsible for torrential rains in B.C. last year, the heat dome which created unprecedented temperatures in B.C, and 2022's drought in the prairies. Also included were testimonials of parents who shared their children are feeling a sense of fear and hopelessness due to current climate projections.

Hamm continued these things are the way the Earth is answering back, and what we are being called to is more than awareness and carbon pricing.

"What we're being called to is a new imagination, as a whole society of people. A new imagination for transforming our society to make it healthy, to make it sustainable, and to make a way for our children to have a future."

Hamm offered what moving forward on this would look like.

"It will take more than all of us recycling. It will take more than all of us trying to do our part. This is why we're here today, to say that we're needing action from our government leaders, of all parties, to actually engage in something under the umbrella of an emergency, and to begin to create the structures, the jobs, and transitioning to green energy. The kinds of things that are going to build, actually build, a future, but that we have to really, really kick in something very, very significant very, very soon."

Hamm shared a quote from the book, "One Earth" that spoke to her.

"We did not inherit the earth from our parents. We are borrowing it from our children."