By ROBIN JENKINSON
Driftwood Contributor
About 80 people came to the United Church Meadow at noon last Friday to rally for climate justice.
The climate justice movement embeds climate change within social justice and recognizes that the people most negatively impacted by climate change are those least responsible for creating those impacts and the least able to mitigate or adapt to them.
Presentations were made at the rally about Indigenous reconciliation, BIPOC anti-racism, queer community and youth leadership, how to address class inequity, and standing against corporate and government-sanctioned logging in the Fairy Creek area. A booth about affordable housing demonstrated this many-pronged approach.
“Climate vulnerability is rooted in economic power,” Shamana Ali from the BIPOC Community Collective told the crowd.
Transition Salt Spring’s Climate Action Plan 2.0 and One Cool Island strategy, available on their website, shows how it’s all connected. To fix one thing, we need to fix them all.
“The decisions adults make today will affect youth like me for the rest of our lives,” said Azalia Vachon, a Grade 10 student at Gulf Islands Secondary School. “I don’t want to leave this mess for another generation, so we must take action now.”
Supporters are calling for a transformative climate emergency plan that recognizes the interconnected climate, ecological and social crises, and embeds equity, anti-racism and social justice at its core, while also upholding Indigenous rights.