Alexander Leach, Editor
I still have a sign from when I joined a protest over climate change, on the corner of Pembroke Street back in 2019.
It was the summer, it was hot enough to break records, and we’d all freshly remembered the incredible flooding of the previous year. Me and a bunch of kids and older people stood on the corner, gaining honks and occasionally insults from passers-by.
Eventually, everyone petered off, and only I was left, with a sign someone had handed me, alone. I just went home, put it in my living room window, and moved on.
A year later, I got this job, in the midst of the worst pandemic since the 1910s, and I thought about it.
Whitewater Region is a heavily rural area. Farmers make up a good bit of population, and you can see career farms everywhere. And farmers are one of the first people to feel ecological disasters and changes.
This winter has been plagued by fluctuating temperatures, as has become the norm in the last few years. Snow melts away to rain even in December, and passes above freezing with such regularity that trees start to bloom. Then we get blizzards and terrible storms that put out the power, and trap us all in our homes.
The Pandemic has definitely complicated any response we have to that. The Province is under a state of emergency following an upsurge is cases after Christmas. With a state of emergency, a lot of businesses will have to restrict hours.
The effects causing climate change are still happening. Companies are burning fossil fuels, renewable energy is being ignored. While it feels like Whitewater is far removed from the cause, we directly suffer from it.
The 2018 flood showed us how much we suffer from major weather fluctuations. It isolated homes, destroyed entire neighbourhoods, and shut down whole parts of the Township for weeks. It’s a disaster that could easily happen again. During that, our community centers like Westmeath Arena were critical in giving people a place to stay – something that can’t be done in the pandemic, for risk of spreading a disease that easily passes around large groups and over distances.
With public works projects like Powers Road, a path that desperately needs fixing for access, this could complicate an already complicated year. The Algae problems in Muskrat Lake and other lakes nearby are only going to get worse with the hot summers and mild winters.
My fear is that we’ll have another such extreme weather emergency, and that its efforts will complicate or be complicated by COVID. Coming together to repair and rescue is much harder when you can all become sick with a rapidly spreading plague.
