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This kind of subtle denial only compounds the moral and cognitive dissonance we are all living with. We call it climate anxiety, and children as young as nine years old are suffering from it, according to Canadian research published in Frontiers In Psychology. They see what’s happening and they see the grown-ups doing nothing about it. It is the background noise of our hearts and minds: this growing sense that our dependency on petro-charged transportation, food, heating and housing systems is making the climate hostile to life and we are running out of time to turn things around.
Remnants of a wildfire along Saskatchewan’s Highway 55, shown in June 2025. (Photo by Rob O’Flanagan) saskatchewan wildfires
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By Trevor Herriot
Saskatchewan has passed through another spring with evidence of climate change filling the skies and our lungs. And this time, some of the smoke was being inhaled — some would say blown — by Canada’s first ministers as they met in Saskatoon on June 2 to talk about fast tracking big industrial projects and pipelines to get oil to tidewater faster.
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Not long after, Premier Scott Moe, thought it would be a good idea to distract the public from talk of climate change by blaming the fires on a few arsonists.
This kind of subtle denial only compounds the moral and cognitive dissonance we are all living with. We call it climate anxiety, and children as young as nine years old are suffering from it, according to Canadian research published in Frontiers In Psychology. They see what’s happening and they see the grown-ups doing nothing about it. It is the background noise of our hearts and minds: this growing sense that our dependency on petro-charged transportation, food, heating and housing systems is making the climate hostile to life and we are running out of time to turn things around.
Even with tens of thousands of people driven from their homes by fires made monstrous by climate-change winds and heat, our political leaders were bowing to arguments for fossil fuels as the main drivers of our beloved economic growth and declaring that Canadian oil gets a pass because it is cleaner than oil from other nations. The saddest part is that many of those who fled, leaving behind homes that would turn to ashes, benefit the least from that growth. Many of them don’t even own a car and were evacuated by bus. They aren’t the biggest consumers or producers of carbon. It’s the rest of us farther south who are responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that make Saskatchewan the worst offender in the country, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. We are the big consumers of fossil fuels, and we are the ones electing governments that keep us addicted to them instead of taking steps to stop the madness.
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Rain and exhausted firefighters have quenched many of the fires, but there will be more to come. How do we live well in such times? If you are at all awake in the world, you are probably feeling the moral dissonance that attends a modern, petro-fuelled life. Despite the evidence that our governments at all levels must act now to reduce emissions and take responsibility for our climate footprint, we remain utterly dependent on fossil fuels and the conveniences they provide. Answers are in short supply but here is a question we can all ask: What small thing can I do to advocate and organize my community into local climate action while pushing governments, banks, and corporations to stop developing and funding the fossil fuel industry, and instead begin the just transition to a low carbon economy?
Don’t wait for someone with more time or skill than you. Don’t wait for some hoped for majority to kick into gear and start electing better governments. That’s not how change happens. A better world is built always by a small, motivated group of citizens working together tirelessly over years, and often with little result in the short term but with their eyes always on the moral arc toward justice.
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The British abolition movement began in the 1770s with a dozen people. By 1792, they had 300,000 supporters boycotting sugar and other goods produced using enslaved labour. Like climate activists and organizers today, they had to face down arguments in the media and government that their proposals would cripple the economy. But they never let that stop them. They saw the lie in it, and kept moving forward, building coalitions with others who may not have been in lockstep with them on every aspect of the fight and every social and political issue, but they found common cause and drew encouragement and hope from the smallest of victories on the path toward their goal of stopping the British trade in slaves.
A few short weeks ago, people driving the highways through burning forests reported seeing bears, deer and smaller animals running across the pavement in panic as they tried to get away from the fire. No one was evacuating them to a safe place. If you need something to motivate you, think about them. Think about how this world belongs to them as well and they have done nothing to bring on the destruction and upheaval that is changing their corner of the world faster than they can adapt to it. We are the ones, the creatures so proud of our own wisdom and ingenuity, our vaunted sapiens, who brought this on, and we must be the ones with the moral courage to stop it.
Trevor Herriot is a writer and naturalist in Regina.
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