“Connect the Dots is a project of 350.org and our partner organizations, to shine a spotlight on the connections between extreme weather and climate change…We’ll kick off the project with Climate Impacts Day on 5/5/12, when thousands of communities around the world come together to take action to Connect the Dots and call for urgent action to stop the climate crisis” Bill McKibbon

 

”There is a spiritual corollary to the way we are currently deforesting and denaturing our planet. In the end what we must most defoliate and deprive is ourselves.” John Fowles’ “The Tree”

On May 5th Georgian Triangle Earth Day Celebration and 350.org will be joining Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority to plant trees. Many of you may remember the work that 350.org does to bring the world’s communities together to combat the  spectre of climate change that confronts our communities, by creating actions that are meant to mitigate the impact of climate destabilization.  In the past there have been several protests with hundreds of people in the Collingwood area on International Day for Climate Action and over 50 slide presentations at the schools that vividly showed the social justice and ecological impacts of accelerating climate change.

Although our area has so far been spared extreme weather such as flooding or drought it is certainly possible for that to happen. (The Great Lakes have lost 71 percent of their ice cover since 1971. The consequences of this loss are great.)  Planting trees is always an important part of risk management for drought and flooding as well as capturing greenhouse gases. The May 5th tree planting will take place at Black Ash Creek. We will meet at 9AM in the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Collingwood on Mountain Road. Please bring comfortable clothing, closed-toe shoes/rubber boots, rain gear, bug spray, sunscreen, hat, gloves, shovel (if possible). We’ll be planting white cedar, white spruce and tamarack till noon.  If you wish to have information sent directly to you and your family, please write to celebrateearth@yahoo.ca  Please sign up your organization and the number of participants who will be showing up on the 5th.

The huge conference, ‘Planet Under Pressure’, has just ended in London.  It coincides with the highest temperatures for March ever recorded across the globe.  ‘Planet Under Pressure’ brought thousands of scientists together including many young professionals.  The final declaration, entitled “State of the Planet” leaves no doubt that we must make immediate transformative changes to how we interact with Earth if we are to overcome the many crises that are upon us. “Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk. Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources: these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological and social crises, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale.” Please read the rest of declaration at: http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/state_of_planet_declaration.pdf

Connecting the dots between climate and severe weather has been established.  Just this last week Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a long awaited report entitled, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance climate Change Adaptation”. It speaks about the urgent need to understand the emerging risks brought on by climate change and manifested in extreme weather events that are now accelerating and reduce the vulnerability and exposure of people throughout the world.  Another scientific report from the University of Exeter links the tremendous loss of sea ice since 2007 in the Arctic with a tipping point for an ice free Arctic Ocean.

Our May 5th tree planting will be one of several Earth Month events in our area to celebrate our green planet.  The March 31st climate change awareness campaign, strikingly demonstrated in Earth Hour, was a global success.