{"id":34233,"date":"2020-02-21T03:59:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T11:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34233"},"modified":"2020-02-19T18:11:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T02:11:36","slug":"climate-hot-topic-at-limmud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/02\/21\/climate-hot-topic-at-limmud\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate hot topic at Limmud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Larry Barzelai and Maayan Kreitzman will talk about environmental activism at Limmud on March 1. (photos from the interviewees)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Environmental activism is among Canada\u2019s top news stories in recent days and the issue will be confronted from both a Jewish and a broader perspective by two leading voices at Limmud Vancouver next month.<\/p>\n

Dr. Larry Barzelai, a Vancouver family doctor, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia\u2019s faculty of medicine and B.C. chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), will present alongside Maayan Kreitzman, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. The pair acknowledges that they come at the topic using different tactics, but aim for the same objective.<\/p>\n

Kreitzman has been among those blockading the port and traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actions happening in the streets right now are in response to this Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline construction on Wet\u2019suwet\u2019an land,\u201d she said. But this is only one element of the much larger picture, which is that oil and gas development is \u201coccurring unabated and greenhouse gas emissions and ecological destruction is continuing unabated throughout the world, when we know that these activities are threatening our life-support system and are putting billions of people at risk over the next decade. People are already being impacted today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue brings together a host of concerns, she said, including \u201cindigenous rights and sovereignty, the Canadian government\u2019s complicity in a climate-unsafe future \u2026 as well as the business side of that from the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kreitzman has heard the complaints that disruptive protests may turn off potential allies and anger the general public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people\u2019s emotions are valid and there is a valid concern about disrupting ordinary people that need to make a living and need to take care of their families,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cOn the other hand, I think many of the people that sometimes make these kind of complaints aren\u2019t really the people that are struggling to feed their families. People that come from a place of privilege need to recognize that these protests inconveniencing them is a small price to pay for the types of progressive changes that will benefit all of us, including their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kreitzman said she and Barzelai will \u201cbring a concise summary of the latest science to people so that they really understand the magnitude of the situation that we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cWe\u2019ll be speaking to a spectrum of different actions, from the personal to the more conventional campaigning type of approaches, like report-writing, research, lobbying, letter-writing, to direct-action approaches, which is what I\u2019m most interested in, where people that have privilege start putting their bodies on the line and breaking the law on purpose, using the message of nonviolent civil resistance, which has been successful in many movements throughout history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barzelai takes a more conventional approach to advocacy, but shares Kreitzman\u2019s sense of urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change, which we\u2019re calling a climate emergency, is upon us,\u201d he told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s dramatic and we have to take big steps to do something about it. Maayan is taking a bit more radical approach to this. Myself and my group are a bit more middle-of-the-road, shall we say, but I think we both have the same endpoint in mind \u2013 that things have to change dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

CAPE, which has been around for about 25 years, focuses on the health impacts of environmental decisions and climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see diseases that are spreading, we see cancers that are becoming more rampant, we are seeing the floods and the wildfires and the temperature changes that are dramatically affecting people\u2019s health and we figure it\u2019s our responsibility as doctors to look at climate change from a health perspective and to inform people of what\u2019s going to happen unless we make dramatic changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fracking is one area where he thinks British Columbia is \u201creally going down the wrong path.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve bought this myth that natural gas is clean energy, which it is absolutely not, and they are doing their best to increase rather than decrease global warming, and we think that\u2019s the crucial issue that needs to be discussed in Canada and especially in B.C.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kreitzman and Barzelai will speak at Limmud Vancouver on March 1.<\/p>\n

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Larry Barzelai and Maayan Kreitzman will talk about environmental activism at Limmud on March 1. (photos from the interviewees) Environmental activism is among Canada\u2019s top news stories in recent days and the issue will be confronted from both a Jewish and a broader perspective by two leading voices at Limmud Vancouver next month. Dr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8684,3076,2845,3543,4347,9680,1959],"class_list":["post-34233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-climate-crisis","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-larry-barzelai","tag-limmud-vancouver","tag-maayan-kreitzman","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}