Articles by Maude Barlow

Source: Rabble.ca

Maude Barlow received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from York University in Toronto yesterday morning. Here are her speaking notes for the Convocation ceremony.

Chancellor Gregory Sorbara, President Mamdouh Shoukri, the Senate of York University, and all the graduation students, 

It is a great honour to share this convocation with you today. I am moved by your grace, energy and hope on this lovely June day.

In the few minutes I have to share with you I would like to urge you all, no matter what your education specialty, what vocation you choose, or where you live, to give some of your precious life energy to the great environmental challenges that face us today. read more

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

Have you heard? The world is running out of accessible clean water.

Humanity is polluting, mismanaging, and displacing our finite freshwater sources at an alarming rate. Since 1990, half the rivers in China have disappeared. The Ogallala Aquifer that supplies the U.S. breadbasket will be gone “in our lifetime,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.

By 2030, global demand for water will outstrip supply by 40 percent, a surefire recipe for great suffering. Five hundred scientists recently told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that our collective abuse of water has caused the planet to enter “a new geologic age” and that the majority of the planet’s population lives within 31 miles of an endangered water source. read more

Source: Council of Canadians

Today, I will be in Victoria to join the many others who, like me, envision a different future than that which the Harper government has set out. We see a world with clean rivers and streams for fishing and drinking, clean air we can breathe, and land protected from industrial clearcuts in the name of pipelines and fossil fuels. We envision a world with lively, sustainable, and healthy communities that we can protect, free from corporate influence.

First Nations communities along the pipeline routes, along BC’s coast, and in the tar sands have been taking action and showing leadership to protect their communities and coastlines. But no matter how loudly they say “no” their message is falling on deaf ears. That’s how we know it’s time to act. read more

Source: Yes Magazine

We all know that the Earth and all upon it face a growing crisis. Global climate change is rapidly advancing, melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, and displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban slums. Almost every human victim lives in the global South, in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. The atmosphere has already warmed up almost a full degree in the last several decades and a new Canadian study reports that we may be on course to add another 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. read more