Reality Cheque ~ The Great White North

The Times They Are Changing

In case anyone out there has missed the memo, climate change has snuck up on us and bit us in the ***. Around the world on every continent and subcontinent there are heat waves, floods, fires, super typhoons and just about any and every type of really ugly weather you can imagine.

As an expat Canadian I tend to keep track of what's going on in what was my homeland. Lately, I have been finding stories of how hard it is to live in the Great White North. Some places have found that the ice roads that would bring them in materials during the winter aren't firming up like they used to so they can't bring in supplies. Other places are finding that the higher temperatures are bringing droughts, wildfires and water shortages.

Such is the case in Nunavut Territory. Iqaluit has a water shortage. Some are blaming this water shortage on the racist attitude of the colonizing white man. Undoubtedly there's some truth to that theory. But I have my own theory

Here I'm going to use the terms that I grew up with. I do not consider them racist nor do I consider them politically incorrect. They may be both.

The Inuit, before the arrival of the whites led a very particular type of life. They built their igloos out of large blocks of ice. They created very warm tents out of animal skins and driftwood, boats were made out of local materials covered in animal skins.

To the best of my knowledge, they were nomadic, semi nomadic people that followed the seasons and the game. Now, they lead for the most part, a settled life in small towns villages, cities. They bring in materials like wood and cement to build their houses. They have central heating, running water, electricity. Fair enough times change.

But with the change in times came changing lifestyles and attitudes. Few now follow the seasons and the game. They buy their food out of a grocery store. They no longer burn blubber for light or for heat They turn a switch. They have adopted a southern Canadian lifestyle. No longer do they live with mother earth. They fight against mother earth for their comfort.

They are living so far out of balance that they can no longer live without a great deal of aid and assistance from the South. That aid and that assistance is getting more and more expensive every year. It may well be that the Great White North is Canada's first climate refugee area.

In America in the southwest they have built lakes and cities in the desert. They have had a sustained drought which has turned into simply the new climate reality for the last 20 plus years. If they wish to continue to live in the desert, they will have to find ways to make the water that they have go a long long way. This is something that only a very rich society can do.

Canada is a rich country but Canada has a much smaller population and a much smaller resource base to use to support people in places that are getting very very hard to live in.

I believe that it's time for a southerly migration. Not because I'm a colonizer, or because I'm white, or because I'm a racist, though I may be all three. I believe it's time for a migration to the South because mother earth is saying you can no longer live here the way you do, end of discussion time to leave bye bye for now. 

Brian