Welcome, everyone, to Infulenza, an event hosted this evening by Great Lakes St. Lawrence Kairos, one of the five regional networks that operate across Canada, uniting ordinary Canadians working together on ecological justice and on human rights issues. The silver lining of Zoom is that it gives our community events breadth that we never had in the past. So we're honoured tonight to have guests from across Canada, from BC to Prince Edward Island to the Northwest Territories, and we even have a guest from south of the border this evening. Welcome, everyone. Acknowledging traditional Indigenous territories is one way to recognize contemporary and historical Indigenous presence and land rights. It's a small step towards dismantling the continued impacts of colonialism and undoing Indigenous erasure in our everyday lives. So tonight, we express thanks that we are able to work and live in these territories. We're thankful to the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people who have cared for these territories since time immemorial and who continue to contribute to the strength of our communities. A few words about tonight's agenda. We have a rich lineup of speakers who have graciously accepted to share their wisdom with us. We will first hear from Vicky Monag, followed by the two speakers from Kyros Guelph who are going to introduce the video that they created. And then we will also hear from Randy Halouza-Delay. So we ask that you hold all your questions until after all of the speakers have presented. You can, if you like, put your questions in the chat box as the speakers are presenting and we'll get to them. We have about a 15 to 20 minute window after the speakers have gone through to take your questions. And we're going to close the event this evening with comments from Yusra Shafi, a young woman who is going to COP 27. So I hope that you will have a chance to stay for the entire event. We hope to be done by 8.30 if all goes well. And a special thanks also to Shannon Neufelt at Kyros who is our technical person this evening. So she's going to be recording in and out as the evening progresses. But only the speakers will be recorded. So my name is Elaine Garrow. I am the co-chair of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Kyros with Sherilyn Sprachman. And I would now like to introduce Sherilyn Sprachman to make an opening reflection. Yes, good evening, everyone. Evening here in Ontario. And welcome to everyone. It's wonderful to have people from across the country and one person from south of the border as Elaine has said. As we gather tonight, us people of faith, I open with this devotion, a reading asserted from the Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. It reads as, my message of hope is this. You realize that we can win these wars, that there is hope for our future, for the health of our planet, our societies and our children. Please believe that against all odds, we can win out because if you don't believe that, you will lose hope. Sink into apathy and despair and do nothing. There is great hope for the future in the actions, the determination and energy of young people around the world. And we can all do our best to encourage and support them as they stand up against climate change and social and environmental injustice. Finally, remember that we have been gifted not only with a clever brain and well-developed capacity for love and compassion, but also with an indomitable spirit. We all have this fighting spirit. It's no good denying that there are problems. There's no shame if you think about the harm we've inflicted on the world. But if you concentrate on doing the things you can do and doing them well, it will make all the difference. As we lead forward, thank you. Thanks, Cherylyn, for that. Our focus tonight is on ecological justice. And I'd like to introduce our first speaker, Vicky Monag. Vicky is a Baudwe Watemi Ojibwe Anishnabekwe from Beausoleil First Nation. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much, Vicky. And welcome to those that are joining us now. The recording has started again. I would now like to introduce Elizabeth Snell and John Lawson from Kairos Guelph, the creators of the thoughtful video that we're about to watch this evening. Elizabeth Snell is an ecologist who ran a small ecological consulting business with her husband. This allowed them each to work part-time with their and spend some time at home at the same time with their three children and be active in several environmental and social justice groups. Her work involves studying habitats in southern Ontario, which she conducted for government, for conservation authorities and environmental NGOs. She's been a member of Kairos Guelph and it's 10-day predecessors for 33 years and she has attended Dublin Street United Church in Guelph, sometimes sporadically, for 71 years. John Lawson is a retired United Church of Canada minister. John has served United Churches in a number of communities in southern Ontario and most recently in the city of Guelph where he resides with his partner. John has always loved the outdoors and is an avid gardener, camper and hiker. Out of that love of the outdoors comes a deep concern and a desire to protect our beautiful world and its creatures. The climate crisis both haunts him as well as pushes him to be part of the healing of creation. Elizabeth and John, welcome. I guess I start and thank you very much, Elaine, and hello. It's great to be here with so many interested participants. I followed climate science for years and become increasingly alarmed by the facts and the projections and especially the inaction, but I'm also encouraged by the opportunities if we act now. I guess it's the seventh fire that Vicki referred to. I very briefly share these aspects of the climate crisis using the metaphor of a curable disease touching on the cause and the symptoms and the prognosis and the treatment. My hope is that viewers will view the understanding of, will improve their understanding of the extreme urgency for action and of the opening it offers to transition to a much healthier fairer society. We're at a kairos time, a critical extraordinary moment for government, business, and citizens to work together to build a better world. The video evolved from the faithful climate conversations by for the love of creation. We made it about a year ago, so some of the data may be a bit dated, but if anything, the urgency has grown, but so has the progress. So now a renewable energy is clearly the cheapest form and maybe another example could be Europe accelerating action to renewables after the loss of Russian gas. I have a list of the data sources I use to find anyone's interested. I also want to add a note on the influenza treatment that 100% renewable, however essential, is not enough. And again, as Vicki pointed out, accessing the necessary minerals alone, and this is for the 100% renewable, would bring enormous damage. So we also have to question limitless growth. Human resource use is already twice what Earth can sustain, and the rich-poor gap is wider every year. The world, recently the World Wildlife Fund reported that Earth lost almost 70% of its wildlife populations since 1970, 70% since I was in university. So more rich country resource growth will break down Earth's ecosystem and destroy hope for global justice. But I really feel that faith communities like Kairos can inspire the transition. We can be promoting living abundantly and much more simply. Stressing interconnectedness with nature, as Vicki so eloquently explained, a stronger sense of community and sharing like tools and cars and shorter work hours, healing planet, stronger public services, income redistribution, gender equity, just general liberation from a consumerism treadmill. And we could also facilitate conversations of the kind of economy we want and the right indicators for. So it really adds up to less stuff, lower carbon emissions, more fun and more justice and more peace, all for the love of creation. So I'll hand the virtual mic over to John, I guess, for his introductory comments. Just a few introductory comments. Vicki has said it so well, saying that our worldview is a problem as well. So we have, and Liz, I think lays out the story of the scientific story really, really well in the video. And I think it's important to get that science right. It's interesting in our conversation. Sometimes people don't get that right, or they really don't have fully appreciated. So that part of the video we think is really important, but equally important is what Vicki said that our worldviews may change. And it means that we need to especially settler culture needs to look in the mirror. And as Christians, we need to look in the mirror and say, what has been our part in this worldview where we have bought into a system where we believe that endless growth is possible and where we're separated, as Vicki has said, from the rest of creation. Somehow we're above it. So to look not only at our own personal histories as a culture, a settler culture, but also to look in the mirror about our faith traditions are there ways in which it has, in fact, been part of the problem. And we framed this all in terms of an illness that we need to get over and we need to be healed from. And so I lay out three of those. The disease of dominion, the disease of colonialism and imperialism and the disease of despair as three ones that we could look at. You could choose others. There's there's many others. But it seemed like a way of beginning the conversation. And we hope that that will be able to be part of this evening, where we hear your ideas and thoughts on this as well. And so I guess I think it's time to see the video, I guess. Thanks so much for being here, by the way, it's a real honor to be with you tonight. Thank you, John. Thank you, Elizabeth. Shannon is now going to share the video. It's about twenty two minutes long. The influenza pandemic is flashing cold red for humanity. Successful treatment requires understanding this climate emergency, this everything emergency, this spiritual crisis, this disease, the victims, humans, other species, Canada, the world, today, tomorrow. You, the disease is the burning of fossil fuel, coal, oil and gas, emitting carbon dioxide and other gases. Currently, Asia and United States emit the most. The much of China's emissions are from making products for North America and Europe. But emissions accumulate and total area under the graph indicates in fuel ends of origins. Europe, including the EU and United States, have burnt the most fossil fuel over time. The main symptom is worsening fever. The rising global average temperature trend matches the carbon dioxide trend. We're already three quarters of the way to the one point five degree rise threshold beyond which the disease becomes devastating. That's why one point five degrees is the Paris Agreement target. The complex global climate inflicts a wide range of fever locally. The Arctic is suffering the highest rise from normal. Other red and yellow areas are also enduring more heat than usual. Few land areas are asymptomatic white. Fever disrupts the whole climate metabolism. Already unleashing cascading effects. Severe flooding. Parching droughts. Terrifying wildfires which accelerate the pandemic by emitting extra carbon. Arctic melting, which also worsens the fever since dark water absorbs more sunlight and heat than reflective white ice does. Ocean rise, disrupting communities. And the spread of serious diseases. How does influenza cause fever and disruption? Natural levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap some of the sun's heat, making Earth a Goldilocks planet. Not too hot, not too cold, just right for life. All life evolved to fit the range between 150 and 300 parts per million carbon dioxide that existed for hundreds of thousands of years. But the industrial revolution is burning the fossil fuels. Remains of plants and animals for millions of years ago. Has sent concentrations of carbon dioxide skyrocketing far beyond natural levels. Who is burning the extra fuel? The world's richest people. On average, a Canadian or American emits far more than an Indian or Chinese person. The richest 10% of the global community, which includes most Canadians, causes half of the emissions. Our climate action can make a real difference. If we continue riding this influenza wave, what is the prognosis? With no policies, the pink graph, humanity is doomed. With Glasgow pledges, we are around the yellow line, still distressingly over the 1.5 degree threshold. For our pandemic wave to avoid the worst effects, we must start bold effective treatment now, the turquoise line. What would the main prognosis look like? Today's policies lead to widespread human misery, decimated biodiversity, choking air pollution, brutal storms and heat, hunger, disease, crashing stock markets, mass migrations and death. The turquoise line, to make massive transformations to slash emissions, rapidly phase out fossil fuels, overhaul agriculture and reforest extensively, could bring fresh air, green cities with streets blooming with urban agriculture, high speed trains instead of cars and planes, 50% tree cover, more affordable, comfortable, convenient lives, stable good jobs, a global south leapfrogging to renewable energy and appropriate development, stronger healthier communities, huge health cost savings paying for much of the transformation, decreased tensions and increased collaboration, project drawdown experts estimate the global effort to reach net zero to emissions produced, balanced by those removed by plants, could save over $74 trillion by 2050. What an opportunity for our generation, for Canada to lead, leveraging our ingenuity, experience and resources, we have the solutions. The key is speed, implementation immediately and flat out, delays, multiply treatment, urgency, intensity and cost and risk failure. If we'd started in 2000, we could have followed the gentlest blue curve for relatively mild treatment. Now to stay within 1.5 degrees, we must follow the steep gray line of stronger measures using investment, pricing and tough regulations. Waiting longer will overwhelm any recovery ability and risk Canada being left far behind. The immediate treatment, phase out oil sands starting immediately ensuring support for workers. Canada must keep 83% of our fossil fuel reserves in the ground for any hope of the 1.5 degree limit. Push very hard on energy conservation, focus sharply on renewable energy, upgrading the electrical grid and electrifying our machines. Invest liberally in protecting nature, greatly expand assistance to the global south, the main and largely innocent victims of the influenza pandemic and to whom we owe an immense ecological debt. Because we delayed so long, we must invest in adaptation, infrastructure improvements to deal with built-in impacts as BC has learned. The short-term prognosis with this bold treatment, the International Energy Agency, predicts these prescribed immediate treatments will lead to a fairer, healthier 2030 global community. Britain has already accomplished a percentage reduction comparable to Canada's 2030 target of 40 to 45% below 2005 emissions. 60% reduction would be even better. With reforestation in Kerala, India's poorest state, forest already covers over half its area. Real action is doable. While we need to move much faster, momentum is building. Whole towns in Alberta are going solar. Quebec is switching from diesel to electric buses. Calgary's LRT is powered by wind. By 2030 BC will require 90% of all new car sales to be electric. By 2030, Canada's clean energy sector jobs, already 430,500 will grow by 50%. Alberta will see the most clean energy job growth of any province. And by 2030, it's predicted the nation's electric vehicle industry will employ 184,000 people. 80% of the cars sold in Norway are already electric. Households connect while also urging society-wide treatment. Less beef, fewer flights and switching to an electric car and home heat pump would together have the average Ontario in footprint. Join an advocacy group. Contact your government representatives. Most importantly, spread the vision of the positive prognosis if we all act. Our generation has this unique opportunity to not only avert disaster, but to build a better world. Out to the second part of our presentation. Influenza isn't just a science issue requiring strategies to reduce the burning of fossil fuels. It is also a spiritual issue. Our very relationship with nature and the environment also needs to be healed. Pope Francis in his papal letter, Laudato Si, on the climate emergency, draws on the voice of St. Francis of Assisi. Who saw all of life as connected. St. Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister. This sister now cries out because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters entitled to plunder her at will. Notice the violence against the feminine against mother earth. Let's take a look now at a few of those imperiled relationships and some ideas for healing. First we name the disease of dominion. Many environmentalists have pointed out that the Christian creation story gives humans license to exploit. The Bible says let them have dominion that is human beings fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over all the creatures. This Genesis story has been interpreted as setting a hierarchy with God separate and outside of creation. And humans at the top of the pyramid of life creation then simply becomes a bunch of natural resources to be exploited. Nature is seen as a machine for us to manipulate rather than an interconnected web of life to be honored. Sadly many Christians see this earth as fallen and that our true home is not here at all but in heaven and that caring for our planet is of a minor concern. To counter the disease of dominion we have the vision and the prayer of Jesus that they may be one. It is a prayer for the healing of relationships human as well as non-human because we are part of a web of relationships. If we view God not only as above creation but also in and through all creation the whole world is sacred. It is a part of the very body of God. This is the view of many native based spiritualities and we need to humbly learn from them. We come now to the disease of colonialism and imperialism. Canadians this summer were brought face to face with the terrible truth of the Indian residential school system that took indigenous children against their will with the purpose of killing the Indian in them. Nothing short of cultural genocide. The discovery of unmarked mass graves of hundreds of these children brought us face to face with the violence of our colonial past. Colonial exploitation of people and resources from all around the planet has sadly gone hand in hand with Christianity. Our fuel burning continues to victimize our poorest global neighbors and indigenous peoples everywhere. We are called away from the disease of colonialism to a healing journey towards right relationships. At the center of it is the call that we will love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That means listening to all our relations being in relationship not only with two-legged but also four-legged and multi-legged creatures as our indigenous brothers and sisters teach us. It means hearing and responding to those neighbors especially in the global south who are most affected by the climate emergency. It means divesting from exploitation and instead investing in healing community. It means embracing the wisdom of other religious traditions. And finally it means recognizing that we are all one on this precious yet fragile planet. Finally we look at the disease of despair. It's an understandable response to the overwhelming emergency which we're facing with the climate crisis. But the writer George Monbiot challenges this. He writes, catastrophe afflicts people now and unlike those in the rich world who can still afford to wallow in despair they are forced to respond in practical ways. Despair is not an option. Our inaction has forced them into action as they respond to terrifying circumstances caused primarily by the rich world's consumption. The Christians are right, he writes, despair is a sin. The healing journey from despair towards a living hope can take many forms. The parables of Jesus reminding us of a small amount of yeast leavening a whole loaf or a small mustard seed that grows. All speaks about the irrepressible life force found in all creation including in us. We need to find practices that ground ourselves and find healing actions that bring hope and joy. Gardening, a walk in nature, playing with kids, finding expression in art and music. Joining others in the climate healing, for example planting trees, writing letters, working in a community garden. Find others who share our concerns and together find ways to respond. Keep inspired by stories of hope and action from people around the world. Good things are happening. Find out and join in in your own unique way. We invite you to consider pausing the video for a moment and consider what we have presented. Both from the science as well as from the faith perspective, the spirituality perspective. Rachel Carson, who began the modern environmental movement, said this. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. And so we ask you now, where does your faith or spirituality guide and inspire you as we confront the climate crisis? In 2018, a young teenager named Greta Thunberg, who felt the illness of mother earth and the crisis of the climate, acutely sat down outside the Swedish parliament to protest the inaction of governments and leaders. That simple act sent ripples of action around the world. You never know where one simple act of protest and healing will lead. We can send out ripples as well and we don't know where they will lead. We can begin with conversations where we share from the heart and listen to others and their concerns. We can begin to act at home by buying less, eating less meat or finding ways not to use and abuse fossil fuels. We can invest in a healthy future by supporting local businesses, buying organic or divesting from companies with a poor environmental record. And finally, we can advocate by urging governments at all levels to act, sharing that we care and have a vision of a healthier future for all on this planet earth. The message we have is a simple one, that we all must begin. We all must act in big and small ways and we need to do that now. Just below this video in the notes on YouTube you will find links to further information and ways to act. Also please add your own notes and comments in the section there and share what you have done to bring healing and hope to this beautiful and wonderful planet. But most important, the message we have is that we need to begin. We all need to begin and act and act now. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Elizabeth and John. That was a thought provoking video that you put together. And yes, Elizabeth, as you mentioned, some things are evolving. I mean, things are moving at a fast pace. And that brings us to our next speaker. Randy Halusa Delay is the ecological justice program coordinator at Kairos. He moved to Toronto last year from Alberta. Before working at Kairos he was a university professor focused on environmental justice in Canada and interfaith religious climate activism. And before that he was a wilderness guide. Now he navigates the urban wilderness in Toronto on his bicycle. Welcome, Randy. Thank you very much. Yeah, I was a wilderness guide until the knees started hurting too bad then it became a university prof until other things happened and I started working for Kairos and it's been great. Let me share my screen here and I'll get started. So the thing that I was asked to do was to talk about my experience at a cop. I went to cop 22 and I'm assuming that you can see my slide right there. Yes. Okay. So yeah, cop 22 was in 2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco. And it was the year after the Paris Agreement in 2015, which was kind of a groundbreaking thing, although it hasn't necessarily manifested all that well, but what the countries of the world agreed to in Paris was that we want to try to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as a global average. And, you know, definitely under two degrees Celsius. It's currently about 1.1 or 1.2 degrees of warming. So the cop 22 was kind of special because the signatories of the Paris Agreement agreed really fast to do it. But surprisingly fast and so cop 22 became a cop that was about trying to raise the ambition and, you know, do what the countries had agreed to do. So I want to explain today a little bit about the nuts and bolts about how a cop works. Since cop 27 is coming up, I don't even explain what caught me in a second, but also reflect a little bit on the following question, which is, what do faith groups and religious activism bring to the climate meetings, other than the potential mobilization of religious publics, which I think is actually really important. It's one of the reasons that I'm involved with Kairos. But, you know, do they bring anything else other than just getting another sector of the population interested in active. So this is one of the most important pictures and a picture that I constantly portray. And this is taking place during an ecumenical Christian service at one of the relatively few Christian churches in Marrakesh. And these are all members of the Lutheran World Federation delegation. And LWF had decided that year to bring only youth and primarily youth from Africa to an African cop in Morocco. But the point is, is that, you know, do religions bring something that isn't what environmental groups, governments, corporations and so forth are bringing. I'm not even going to begin to argue that climate change really increases the vulnerability and exposure people around the world and it doesn't matter whether that's in Senegal or in Vancouver. But definitely that doesn't happen equally because Senegal has fewer resources Senegal is also affected to a greater degree by climate change and just can't adapt as much. So Canada and other developed countries need to do much more work to contribute their fair share to the adaptation but also the work still that remains at mitigating climate change emissions. So at COP 22, and we often hear that fossil fuels are essential for developing countries to be able to get to a decent standard of living. Well, the 47 LDCs or least developed countries they committed in 2016 to going 100% renewable energy. We know it has happened since be really worthwhile to track that the point is they said, you know, we want to leapfrog a system that we know isn't sustainable and that you know we won't be able to work with for a long time why should we invest all that money resources effort and so forth. Let's go straight to renewable energies so any of the discourses about fossil fuels, I think are dramatically undermined. There are many religious groups involved with many religious groups do humanitarian development work, and climate change is eradicating decades of international development work. The Canadian coalition on climate change and development includes groups like World Vision Canada, Meta Knight Center Committee, Canadian Food Grants Bank, United Church Oxfam, and others. There are a lot of other reasons that religious groups are are involved as well, including just thinking through their moral vision, but how should we live in the creator's world. How should we engage with the rest of creation, things like that. But also a real concern about climate justice. And I'm going to talk more about that shortly. This is cop. What is the UNF triple C United Nations Framework Convention on climate change was set up in 1992 at the Rio summit of national leaders, all 190 plus countries of the world signed on, and therefore they are party to the UNF. So cop stands for the congregation of the parties. And for 22 years at that point in 2016, they had met annually. Now other meetings happen on a regional basis there's also a midterm cop that happens every year in bond. So cop 22 was because it had been 22 years of meetings since the UNF triple C was set up. Now we're up to cop 27. Now there was a pandemic skip year in 2020. So it hasn't been exactly 27 years but it's been 27 meetings. The agreements under the various congregations of the parties include the Kyoto protocol 1997 the Paris agreement in 2015, and others lots of other ones that you probably haven't heard about. And, and the cops include lots of non state actors, so not just governments but also civil society, women's groups, land reform organizations environmental organizations, business groups and so forth. So cop lasts about two years and he tried to rotate among the, the continents. The next one will be held in 2023 in the United Arab Emirates, and then after that 2024 will be in Australia. I attended as a delegate with the World Council of Churches, which is also affiliated with the ACT Alliance or which used to stand for the action of Christians together. It's kind of like religious groups, mostly Christian groups development organizations and so forth. Now the Catholic groups under said see me separately they're not part of the ACT Alliance. I also was given permission by citizens for public justice and development and peace which is the Catholic bishops of Canada's development and justice organization to kind of say I was part of them. And because of that I was able to participate with Climate Action Network Canada, which is our national network of organizations interested in climate change sort of stuff and is affiliated with Climate Action Network International. There were, I was officially badged for all levels of access and I'll talk about that a little bit. Two sets of meetings today because ACT Alliance met at eight in the morning to kind of plan the day who's going to go to what and so forth, and Climate Action Network International met about three o'clock which is sort of the end of the day, not exactly as a debrief of the day and a reporting back of the different things that people went to whether that was side events, which are sponsored by all kinds of different organizations and governments, or whether that was actual negotiations associated with, you know, climate finance, or, you know what the Alliance of Small and States really wanted to see happen, or the very large group meetings and so forth like that. The rest of my day was kind of spent wondering, I actually went as a researcher, but I was also trying to be useful I was trying to engage with politicians and so forth like that. I was there for the first of the two weeks. That's all the time I could get away from my teaching. The first of the two weeks is a little bit less attended the second week heads of state start heading there the major ministers of environment and and so forth you could say the big weeks go in the second week. So here's some pictures associated with cop 22 americash and you can see a whole set of very large tents in the background at the edge of the city. I was lucky that my where I was staying was relatively cheap and was within walking distance was only about a 40 minute walk to the site. There are three zones at a cop meeting. The blue zone is the most rigorous and then there's the green zone and then the public zone. So in the blue zone you'd come into through the gates you'd have to show your badge and swipe in and so forth like that. And then there's this large promenade with the, you know, shelter from the sun. And then those large tents and here's a picture of the inside of the tent with one of the world council churches delegates. And these are where the major plenary sessions were held. And then other things that would happen would be press conferences, or like I said, side events which are kind of like conference presentations. Or the woman on the left is associated with climate action international and she's handing out a daily eco bulletin which was kind of a summary of the previous day, and what had happened, what might have been negotiated or what kind of interesting and climate action international gives out the fossil of the day award which Canada won a whole lot of times for a whole lot of years, because we're such a fossil fuel producer, and really got in the way of actual climate negotiations from sometime in the mid 2000s until sometime around 2017 or so. The green zone was a less rigorous place to get in it's kind of the site of civil society and business organizations and this is a photograph taken from the entrance of the blue zone across the street behind us and there's the green zone there. And in the green zone like I said there are civil society organizations, presenting what they might be trying to do or what they might be trying to advocate for so in rocker there's a lot of agrarian cooperatives, women's organizations and things like that. But there's also corporations so you can see promotion of electric vehicles and, and so forth. This is the public zone. And the public zone didn't require any kind of badging at all to get into. It was a place where real considerable advocacy and protest movements or, you know, any kind of attention getting kind of stuff happens so indigenous groups from South America were here, or, you know, on the Tuesday of the first week. We all had a presidential election and so on the Wednesday, we all found out in the morning that, you know, who had gotten elected. And it was a very interesting, just a crashing of emotions for a couple of days with Donald Trump being elected and going like Holy What's going on here now with our world, until again a very interesting phenomenon, China stepped up and said we're going to try to fill that void of, you know, global climate leadership corporations started to say you know what the United States is only a portion of the world economy. So we're still going to have to go for it because we have to deal with the EU and the rest of the world. And you know that one picture is a picture of an activist saying okay here's what the presidential to do list is and that's taking place in the public zone. If you remember back in 2015 or even a Glasgow last year, you remember the large climate marches that might have happened and those started in the public zone and it would have walked through the streets. The structure of a cop is highly procedural, highly technical, the list of acronyms is beyond comprehension. There's a two week schedule as I've mentioned that includes thematic days, you know, there's gender day youth day civil society day science day, water day and so forth. The Sunday before things start on the Monday we're kind of initial strategy meeting so people from around the world gathered with Climate Action Network International and tried to figure out what is what are we going to do how are we going to work hard. At COP 22 and 2016 it was to raise the ambition to really move us towards only holding the changing climate to 1.5 degrees Celsius. I mean we're, we've over, we're probably going to overshoot that anyway, because the national commitments really are probably going to only limit the warming to around 2.7 or three degrees. So we still have a long ways to go. But those strategy meetings are really important. Saturday was a global day of action. Sunday is a day off and Saturday night there was a NGO party, which was a lot of fun to just meet with people and just be able to relax. So what did the delegates do. Well, why are they there. Well one thing is there's a lot of meeting and planning together and so this is a set of pictures that show like you know day one there's only a few people there at the World Council of Churches ACT Alliance booth. And then a few days later there's a few more people by the end of the week when I had to leave there was more people and it got busier and busier and busier as it went but that meeting and planning together. So it's really important. I mean we can do a lot through zoom we can do a lot through email but it's also another thing to really talk to people and really kind of, you know, spend time with them, and, and work at strategy and so forth together. So the thing that delegates do is a lot of engaging and lobbying engaging with politicians ministers bureaucrats and so forth. And here's just some examples of the thematic working groups that the ACT Alliance had, and the organizations that kind of led those working groups to Christian aid UK, organizing the campaigning and mobilization thematic working group, and Christian aid Philippines along with the Russian group, organizing the thematic group on women and climate. There's efforts to communicate back home. We produced one minute video clips to shot with a cell phone. This is Lydia from Kenya and the Anglican church saying this is why I'm here. This is what's important. To communicate not just back to Kenya not just to Anglicans but by the World Council church is put on their website and and try to communicate and we tried to amplify the voices of our brothers and sisters from around the planet. We're not just orthly making pronouncements or delivering statements such as the Islamic climate change declaration, which was released during COP 22 in Morocco, or, and again I can't emphasize enough how important it is to build solidarity. As Christians believe that we're part of a global body of Christ is is the church, broadly speaking a social movement. And I was one of my major research areas as a social scientist to look at social movements and, and how they produce or provoke or try to to generate change. But that sense of solidarity also extends across faith faiths. In the bottom picture. That's a woman from Mali who is Muslim who was brought by the Lutheran World Federation to COP and is in a side event communicating what's going on in Mali. The picture on the right is five of the members of the Lutheran World Federation, including the tall fellow in the back with the longer head in the center. Pascal from Senegal was 28 years old and he was the head of the Lutheran Church of Senegal. He said, look, we need to start listening to youth, especially around something that's affecting our country so so significantly. He also told me that it was quite challenging because in Senegal, it's really elders who have who are perceived as having the wisdom and so as a youth, trying to, you know, lead the church as the, not not the paid executive director kind of staff but as the, the, the president for the year was very interesting phenomenon to have somebody so young leading the denomination there. A sixth thing that happens at COP and what delegates do and what not just the delegates but all of us who are paying attention can do is to be a public witness. So, on the left, the fast for the climate is something that happens on the first of every month there are people all around the world. And San Diego from the Philippines and 2013 when Typhoon Yolanda in Canada we call something different I always get wrong high end, I think it blasted through and killed 8,000 people right during the COP meetings of that year and so he began a fast for the, for the COP meetings and then it has carried on as a climate fast every month, or there's staged actions during COP, and we did this action about getting finance out of fossil fuels, which is still an issue. And then Canada, for example, is one of the largest funders of fossil fuel extraction and production in Canada. So if you bank with the Royal Bank, your money is helping continue fossil fuel fossil fuel missions and climate change. And other public witnesses include the climate march and this year the global day of action will be on November 12 so look in whatever city you're in, or we are also trying to organize candle vigil so candles for COP. And that weekend of November 11 to 13, then maybe Shannon can put something in the chat or you can get a link and maybe your congregation or community group can promote the candlestar COP vigil during COP on that weekend November 11 to 13. So my observations and I actually forgot to write down what time I started was that, well these events are for elites. There is a lot of other stuff that happens during COP and it becomes a real chance to, sorry, to try to communicate while the media attention to try to communicate to, to lots of people about what is going on and why this is a climate crisis climate emergency, and why justice needs to be done. And I also observed that there's a real difference between the attitudes and perspectives and the ways of acting and the priorities of, of activists, lobbyists and institutional authorities, even with the World Council of churches or the ACT Alliance so I spent some time with the Orthodox Bishop of Zimbabwe. Really different perspective from the lobbyist who was with Bread for the World, Germany, or the activists who are with some of the other church groups. The predominant focus and framings I also found very interesting. There's a picture of the then head of UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres receiving an interfaith petition for climate justice with, that's a lot of signatures folks. That was at COP 21 in Paris. So the predominant focus and framings by religious groups, church groups especially was on equity. People said things like we are guided by an equity lens. We are guided by science and equity. And from interviews that I did. Many of the church based activists who've been around for a long time even goes with Climate Action Network Canada said you know what we were talking about equity and justice. Long before the environmental organizations were, and back in 2010 when I did a mini research project, looking at climate justice and environmental justice in Canada. The only place I could find any language around climate justice was actually on a Kairos document, which is another reason for me to be excited to work for this organization. But that was also looking at like what are religious groups contribute is their specific faith or language and practices and stuff like that and I was really surprised that it showed up surprisingly infrequently. The technical expertise predominated expertise, whether it's policy or science or technical sort of stuff was expressed in meetings, but faith stuff was expressed elsewhere so people would talk privately and where I asked them questions about why why were they doing this work and why did they keep on with it, you know, for a couple of decades and they'd always talk about how important their faith was, but that wasn't brought out in public which I think is really something if we're going to talk about a public witness we, we also should talk about what, why we do things and, and it might also relate to our theories of social change. So what is your theory of social change. Is it just about advocating to politicians could it be advocating to church leaders. What's the role of spirituality. Is there a place for, for the creator for God in the work that we try to do for climate justice. And if you Google that title and you Google my name you'll find I just wrote a column for Canadian Mennonite magazine on what that is the title that you can see what I have to say about it, or not. Anyway, just to try to wrap up here my some of my conclusions are that we really need climate and creation care education in religious education at all levels, especially with leaders. We also need leaders to lead, not just the younger generation trying to say things, but those who've been around a while, and those who have kind of positions of authority who are listened to we need pastors to talk about climate change and justice from the other side of it we need denominational leaders to say this is important, and it permeates all the work that we do whether it's on migrant justice, human rights, refugees, international development work solidarity with the church around the world, and things like that. Lastly I do want to say that faith groups do see the world differently. One thing they bring this idea and their faith based ecological understandings that all humans belong to a shared morality that is all humans are worthy of ethical consideration we say everybody is our neighbor. But more than that, we, we have a more cosmological sense of things to that changes to all of creation, all creatures are worthy of ethical consideration, all creation matters. Because politics of creation care justice and a creator is not just the technosis policy language and tools that tends to permeate. Whenever we're thinking and talking about climate policy climate action and so forth. I really want to emphasize that that is a very unique contribution of faith groups. I'll close with this quote from Pope Francis in Laudato Si. If you have not read that, and you are a Christian, you should read it it's the most important Christian document ever written about the environment and about justice and it's not just about the environment because also brings in Indigenous rights, respect for cultures and things like that lots of other stuff a critique of technicism or technological managerialism. And in one at one point towards the end, a strategy for real change calls for rethinking processes in their entirety. But it is not enough to include a few superficial ecological considerations, while failing to question the logic, which underlies present day culture. So thank you for listening to me and that and if you have any questions feel free to search for my name on the Cairo's website and shoot me an email and I'll definitely respond to you I can also send you these slides if you're interested and I'll answer questions. When it's the appropriate time tonight. Thank you very much Randy. And I'm glad that you're going to be representing us at COP 27 this year. Well, actually, I won't be there because Kairos and for the love of creation is sending a delegation of youth, Indigenous peoples from Turtle Island, and Kairos partners from the global south because the point is to get voices that have not been listened to they've been ignored they've been muted. Try to get them a voice in this room. That's great. I'm staying home but I'm hoping that us and all the rest will have really important things to say that I can keep sending out to all the rest of Canadians. Okay, so we have a short amount of time now for any questions you might have. I hope that you've been looking in the chat. In the chat to see what has been happening there there's one person who asked whether the video was available on YouTube and it is. I don't have the link handy, but I can send it out to everyone. What that means of course is just to go on YouTube and to do a Google search for it. Oh, Randy just put it on. Thank you Randy. Shannon has also put a couple of links on one for candles for COP 27 and also one about environmental racism. Please put up your electronic hand if you have a question or comment for any one of the speakers for Vicki for Elizabeth and John or for Randy. We've got 10 minutes or so to to take those questions if if you would if you have any comments to make. I just asked how is Kairos responding to concerns about COP 27 Egypt's restrictions on the rights of civil society. That's that's a really important question and I would say that that should have been a much more important thing for all of the civil society, Common Action Network, environmental organizations and nations like Canada to be emphasizing. Yusra is actually from Kuwait, and she might have some really interesting perspectives she's going to wrap us up tonight so you know, throw that over to her as a wild bitch and see if she can feel that at some point. We have brought it up, you know our delegates are many from the global south so they're very aware of the social justice and human rights concerns, and we're hoping that some of that will get communicated. That's great thank you Randy. Any questions from anyone. Yes, Jada. It's Utah. Oh, Utah sorry. I'm curious how Kairos views the war in Ukraine and how that's impacts a lot of matters. The next question is is for Randy or Shannon or Shannon. So I would say I would call it climate change a peace issue. I would call the war in Ukraine a Petro war, because energy has become one of the tools of the war. But that, that also goes to show how resource dependencies make us more vulnerable or make certain places more vulnerable. Kairos doesn't have a stand on the war in Ukraine at all. But we do partner with other organizations. You know, I'm personally involved with development and peace, and then I central committee and others who who are trying to, like it's really hard to tell a country that's been invaded. What to do and how to do anything when you got one army attacking you so. That points out the real significant need to be extremely careful about how resources lead us into positions where we're vulnerable. Thank you Randy. There's a question from Susan and Joe. So it actually is a comment that Elaine, in regard to Ukraine and so there are a lot of the ecological issues are apparent but I don't know if you are aware of certain things that have been in the news such as a lot of dolphins in the black sea, apparently like thousands of dolphins and there's been thousands of dolphins have died as a result of the war, because of dolphins find their food and navigate with solar systems. These have been disrupted by the firing of missiles and that sort of thing and there have been thousands of dolphins have died as a result and that's just, that's just one unseen ecological disaster emanating from, you know, an unspeakable war that but I just thought I'd point that out because when I, I learned that fact that I found that, like everything related to this senseless war, just incredibly shocking. So it's not just humans who are suffering is what I'm trying to say. I think Vicki made that point and so did. So did Elizabeth and john about the fact that it's all the creatures on the planet. Yes. Any other questions. If not, we will. We will introduce us for I'll introduce us for to you she is the Cairo youth delegate to COP 27. And she has kindly agreed to say a few words about her involvement with the event and the, the, the trip that she'll be making to Egypt for COP 27.  Hi everybody, as much as I would like to talk about everything we have discussed today that is impossible and we'd need a couple of days at least to even scratch the surface. As such, I think I'll just give my very brief commentary on the most salient things that sit out to me in today's event. Vicki started us off with a discussion of the top indoctrination and the many systems around us that are of detriment to many others and touched particularly on ideas of disconnection. I show a lot of Vicki sentiments about disconnection here. Disconnection breeds contempt. It breeds the idea of the other and only caring about oneself. It reminded me of how it came across the idea of nimby ism in one of my classes, or not in my backyard ism. So, as Vicki mentioned, we do not always see the ramifications and that is what this phenomenon highlights. I think about nimby ism as this class had us write a 250 word discussion post about. Honestly, I only need 10 words to say that we take the initiative to put it on our backyard. We put in the work, we become we become more resolute to ensure we are actively looking for and participating in positive and collaborative discourse. Changing world views is something that comes up time and time again for me and has come up time and time again during the course of this webinar. I've been a part of many conversations about this and have written many essays as a college student about this. So in my role as a COP 27 youth delegate, it's great to finally actively be a part of these changing world views to be able to contribute as positively as I can. The lens of video outlining the disease of burning and fossil fuels was great. Just to illustrate some of the more salient points this video makes the cascading effects that were mentioned in this video that was filmed last year have been something we have seen with our own eyes in this time frame alone. From the floods in Pakistan, the hurricanes in the Caribbean to drought in Europe. However, let's move on to something slightly more positive. The idea of being encouraged about the opportunities, the sphere of climate action presents as something Elizabeth bought up in terms of COP and COP 27 in conversations with a lot of the faculty at my university. We have said that still having these conference of the parties is a positive thing in itself. And it's when we stop having these that we are really in a dismal situation. Moving on to the transformative actions as we're mentioned by this video. I think it's equally important to take a moment to discuss some climate winds that are a result of these. According to carbon trust news, the United Nations report described the African continent's vast clean energy potential and describe how it could blunt the harshest effects of global warming. Imagine the jobs. This can create. Imagine the livelihoods that this can improve. Furthermore, communities in Mexico's Oaxaca state have spent the last two decades transferring barren land into a forest. And they've managed to do this with minimum government intervention. They are an example to the rest of the world. As such, it might be worthwhile to mention here that this goes to show that communities should not be equated to the actions or inactions of their governments. These communities have voices to that always deserve to be heard. The video also touched upon themes of colonialism and how that has caused social and ecological disasters. Now what I'm going to say next is something I mentioned and bring up quite often, because part of me is honestly still in disbelief. As you can see has named colonialism as one of the driving factors of the climate crisis, and this is thanks the advocacy of indigenous groups. I'm very hurt into hear this, and what they will actually do about this remains to be seen, of course, but I have hope that that there will be change. I have to have hope, and I will take as much action as I can by framing these issues of intersectionality and colonialism at the very heart of my cop 27 messaging. Those will be my ripples, earthly or at the very least the start of the ripples I hope to make. Again, the video talked about how this is not just a science issue. It's a spiritual one. Vicki again mentioned the idea of bridging communities through faith, something our delegation can play a big role in. From the start, I have always wanted my cop 27 messaging to be around the fact that we are indeed not the lords or masters. We are stewards of mother earth, and we are stewards that can learn from the non species around us. The non human species around us. As Randy outlined, there's a lot faith based communities have done and are doing, especially with regards to international development work. There's a lot of community building and alliance building and learning that this leads to is truly incredible. And I resonate with the idea of working together, having conversations and to hope and heal together. That is going to be very central to my message. And to come as no surprise. We're all faith based communities.  Thank you so much you Sarah is a beautiful message and I'm sure everybody here joins with me and in wishing you the best of luck on this trip to cop 27. So I'd like to thank the presenters and I'd like like to thank also you are guests that are here today. I think the fact that you're here speaks volumes about how important climate concerns are to to all of us. And I hope that you get to follow some cop 27 news in early November when it starts. Thank you again, and good night.


Lifespan.io has released the recording of their CryptoMeets longevity panel from the most recent Ending Age-related diseases conference. We'll tell you what was said and how it relates to some exciting things happening right now in this episode of Lifespan News. Viewers of this show know about the longevity philanthropy of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Richard Hart's well-known support of the SENS Research Foundation, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's involvement in New Limit, the goals of Transhuman Coin, Vita Dao, and more. But why is there such a crossover between the longevity community and the crypto community? That was one of the topics addressed during the panel. Chao Wang, a core contributor of leading Web3 Accelerator and founder community DeFi Alliance, traces the roots of this back to the early days of crypto, with Hao Finney, who received the first ever Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto, choosing to be cryopreserved in hopes of future reanimation upon his death in 2014. Here's what Chao had to say. Obviously, there is a historical reason. Hao Finney, alongside some other crypto OGs, or Bitcoin OGs, are just, I guess, being into this intersection of both fields for a long time. So that's the historical reason. But it's also because of the fact that both crypto and longevity are very much at that bleeding edge of human innovation and technology. Both have the potential to fundamentally change how the human society operates. Crypto decentralizes a lot of activities, removing the middleman, and that just has a tremendous amount of impact. And then longevity, assuming we can live maybe a few decades longer, it means that people would be able to plan for much longer, instead of planning for the next decade, you can plan for the next five decades. And that allows us to do much greater things, much higher riskier things. So these two fields fundamentally are at the bleeding edge, and that naturally just attract the same group of people. Almost every single crypto person I know is really deep in health and longevity and taking care of themselves. What is the most important thing for you after you've made reasonable amount of money and wealth and financial freedom? What is the next most important thing? It's time. It's your health, right? So a lot of crypto people are really into this. And I personally help seeded a couple of longevity or biotech companies. And I think, in general, longevity and biotech startups should really try to raise money from crypto people. There's just a natural fit in terms of funding capital and personal interest. Another panelist was Mark Berniger, a Swiss entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Maximon, a longevity company builder. He hinted that there are some wealthy and well-known members of the crypto community in the background of Maximon's work, and that this cross-community collaboration helps to provide mutual stability. But at this stage, I would say our main connection to the crypto space is mainly as also Jao elaborated some of these quite wealthy individuals, which are now dedicating far more time into health in general, but also longevity-related projects. And I think that's great for both industries because maybe it also makes part of the crypto industry a little bit more sustainable and having a little bit the broader vision. And I think that's why the two worlds have a natural match which will become far more visible in the future. What I can definitely already say without going too much into detail at this stage that we have a few very well-known, very successful people from the digital asset space which are involved in the background in our activities. So that's maybe another example, a very concrete one where we see these two worlds coming together. Another concrete example that was brought up was Vitalik Buterin's donation of a large percentage of all Dojalon Mars coins in existence to the Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit medical charity focused on making 90 the new 50 by 2030. The foundation could have instantly tried to cash in by selling the coins, but instead they announced that they would seek to maximize the coin's long-term value. This provided inherent alignment between the Dojalon holders, the Methuselah Foundation, and by extension the larger longevity community. Here is Cao explaining it. The holders of this token, they have an incentive to create value for this token and therefore potentially attract other people who might be interested in helping with the Methuselah Foundation to participate in some endeavors of the foundation. It's still very early but I can see the start of a trend of longevity startups or foundations using crypto networks as a way to engage in the community and to attract more people into their mission. I personally feel like right now there's way too much money in crypto and there's not enough money in longevity. I agree with that sentiment and it's time that we change that and it's important to note that this panel wasn't entirely cryptocurrency focused. There's potential for blockchain in general to play a huge role as well. As an example, here's lifespan.io president Keith Camido explaining his plans for the organization. I think we can definitely benefit from almost like combinatorial style clinical trials that have cohorts of hundreds of thousands of people with crowdsourcing and I'm very interested to see what I would like to build over the next couple of years to sort of like a lifespan.io 2.0 or you know web 3.0 version that sort of integrates not just quadratic funding but this sort of ability to exchange data which could also really make people feel involved and have agencies. Just again spitballing I can imagine that you could come up with some system where by you know contributing biomarker data maybe you know you get a token or you you you mint an NFT by the process of doing that that then is redeemable for access to the therapy whenever it becomes available or something like that I'm sure we could brainstorm it but something can happen there I'm not sure what but something that's a that's a really good idea yeah let's we'll follow up after you can find the full video of this panel on the lifespan.io youtube channel linked in the video description the potential of this technology and the decentralized science movement in general is huge and if you share these goals and agree with chow that there's not enough money in longevity right now you have the opportunity to take advantage of quadratic funding and change that lifespan.io is currently participating in get coin grants round 13 which has a pool of funding specifically focused on decentralized projects sustaining longevity among them is the web 3 initiative that Keith explained in that clip you can learn more and find instructions on how to donate linked in the video description remember quadratic funding maximizes the impact of your donation you'll have to hurry though round 13 is only open until March 24th 2022 together we can help make this vision a reality as you can see the longevity and blockchain communities have considerable overlap and we're still at the very early stages we're not even yet beginning to realize the potential of these technologies I think it's a safe bet to see the future of health science investment and charitable giving lie in large part at the intersection of blockchain and longevity so I expect that we'll have a lot more on this soon make sure to subscribe and hit the bell icon if you want to be among the first to know I'm Ryan O'Shea and we'll see you next time on Lifespan news


Thank you. The chair, the colleagues, I'm emphasizing the importance of a close cooperation of all the levels. During the pandemic weeks, it was our responsibility to understand the governmental level arrangements in order to avoid the infections and help our villages and citizens to remain safe. That was the key to act accordingly. We had very good regional level initiatives, for example, a campaign for younger generations for school every day, the grandmother to help them to stay at home. And also we also had mobile phones for every people in need as a gift. Because of those for the health, by organizing a growing competition for children under 14 about the climate change and sustainability incorporation of my county and the assembly of European regions in the program. Just yesterday, we organized an important meeting, which the local mayor and state secretary is also in frame of a new project together with the assembly in the European region. Counties in Hungary are responsible for the recent realised EU funds, practically for the strategic improvement of the municipalities. We focus on recovery coordination between all levels. Thank you.