Strength in Numbers:
Jane Fonda Arrives to Assist Our Community
Jane Fonda’s inner strength and conviction to the cause of human rights appears to have risen to the surface once again. Her authenticity was undeniable as she spoke gallantly about our west coast salmon.
“…a symbol of resistance, of persistence that swims thousands and thousands of miles to come to this coast. And then swim upstream – battling grizzly bears and currents and eagles – to its spawning ground. It’s an amazing, miraculous creature that we have to protect. So please join us as we lead the salmon down to the ocean and then watch it float out to the sea that we will do everything that we can, in our power, to protect”.
Forty five years after her human rights activism during the Vietnam war, she’s again standing up to shout NO! She shouts not simply for a cause, but to stop a destructive Big Oil project in the Arctic, poised to be the demise of all life as we know it in our region.
Greenpeace’s ‘Toast the Coast’ campaign, punctuated by their cheeky slogan ‘Shell No!’ kicked off at Jericho Beach on Sunday June 14. The aim is to stop Shell from capitalizing on the large-scale ice-melt by drilling for oil in the Arctic. If Shell is allowed to go ahead with its plan, wild life, water, and people in the region will suffer. Precious animals will go extinct.
Further afield, all living organisms will suffer too because climate change will not slow down. Those super storms we are all too familiar with will only get stronger and more frequent.
Jane Fonda and Rachel McAdams lent their names to a group which includes people of the Musqueum, Squamish and Tsleil’ Watuth Nations. Never mind claims in those ads from Kinder Morgan, numbers speak and this coalition is growing fast.
As the sun set, her words resonated from the stage a few feet across from the beach where a 9-foot salmon sculpture, designed by Henry Roy Vickers, waited. It was suspended over a raft, surrounded by several tiny solar lanterns. It poignantly symbolized how this species and others are at risk if Big Oil continues on its current trajectory.
Word recently came of a huge victory, thanks to two years of global public pressure. Members of the G7 Summit met in Germany a week before the Toast the Coast rally. They declared they will get the global economy off fossil fuels by the end of this century. While this good news marks a drastic change in mindset, our climate will destroy us if this move from fossil fuels isn’t made sooner.
To inform yourself further of this urgent issue, Jane Fonda’s blog entry about the issue is a great starting point. Whether or not you were able to make it to the rally, Jane truly would love to have you stop by http://www.janefonda.com/stopping-shell-oil/ and – for the sake of every living organism in the chain of life – join her in the quest to stop the madness.
