Dear Naomi Klein,

Dear Naomi Klein,

I was at the David Lewis Lecture tonight in Toronto, on Feb. 25/2010

You were inspiring and full of insight and information, prodding in the face of some very difficult issues and I basically agree 99.999% with everything you said except for that 0.001% which is this:

It started with that map you showed that some high powered firm has made for investors etc. The map showed Canada as the most pristine light coloured oasis on the planet.

Now the Canada I know is slightly different. First we know the hell the tar sands have created in Alberta. You probably know as well that most of the tens of thousands of lakes in Northern Ontario are highly contaminated with mercury and uranium mining by-products so that their waters are unfit to drink and most of the first Nations communities that depend on those waters are at high risk of contaminants and cancer producing agents. 

We also know about the effects of the dams built by Hydro Quebec in James Bay and the effect they have had on the Atlantic fisheries. Let us not forget the effects of all the greenhouse gases, acid rain, melting glaciers etc. etc. in the high Arctic. The effects of climate change and pollution are not only affecting people living in Tajikistan, Bolivia and Micronesia, but they are having a severe impact on our own rural Aboriginal communities right across the continent.

To cut to the chase: yes we have an abysmal climate debt, which by the way started with the Imperialism and colonization of the planet since before Columbus, that historical debt as well as the debt of the consequences of the industrial revolution, BUT towards whom is this debt owed exactly? The poor of the planet, yes, but how is it going to reach them?

Through the urban elites of South America, Africa and Asia? The very same people that have wrapped the debts they have incurred around the necks of their own peoples vis a vis the World Bank and the IMF? Is it OK for the government of Argentina to sell the right of their precious water reservoirs to the likes of Donald Trump?

Remember the remarks by David Lewis in that short film clip about the family farm in the face of agri-business? That’s what it is all about.

Before I forget, the message you seemed to be giving to all the good people in that audience, the nice, comfortable and well heeled Canuck intellectual predominantly white bourgeoisie was: look you people, you’ve got it all, you’re living in your ivory tower, you owe the rest of the planet something…yes they do owe…not just to the rest of the planet, but to themselves…their ivory tower is a fucking illusion…yeah it’s picture perfect, but it’s just a veneer masking the poison beneath the surface. Are they going to pay out of the goodness of their hearts, out of fucking charity? I think it is wrong to appeal to people’s charitable tendencies…my motto is that beautiful old Russian proverb…eat bread and salt, and speak the Truth!

Bogos Kalemkiar, Toronto   < bogos777@hotmail.com>