Opinion

Our Climate Choice

By Evangeline Lilly

Feb. 22, 2013 3 min. read

This article is more than 12 years old

I boarded a jet plane this past Friday and traveled 16 hours through the night to Washington, DC. I was back on a plane again on Monday morning flying the reverse 16 hours back home.

I was in Washington for the Forward on Climate rally, to call on President Obama to say “no” to the KXL pipeline.

The journey was long and on the way there I read Tim Flannery’s Now or Never, an inspiring (short) read on the state of the planet in the face of climate change. On the way back I was too exhausted to read or do anything productive, so I watched b-movies and contemplated my experience at the largest climate rally in US history.

I thought about the KXL pipeline and what it represents at this moment in American/Canadian history. I thought about all of the concerns over the pipeline on both sides. I thought about solutions to climate disruption – solutions that won't slow our economy or stop commerce, green energy soluions like the advanced carbon-neutral biofuels that should be fueling my jet travel. I thought about how many people are crying out that we need the pipeline for economic stimulation and for job creation. I thought about the hard working citizens who feed their children through oil related jobs.

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And…I couldn’t help but wonder….

If oil workers could choose, would they choose to work in toxic environments with damaging chemicals, or would they choose to work surrounded by clean air?

If Americans could choose, would they choose to work on the infrastructure for cancer-causing oil power or would they choose to work on the infrastructure for health reviving wind power?

If Canadians could choose, would they choose to dig up their forests, leaving behind barren and filthy wastelands, or would they choose to harvest the sun’s rays and leave behind a legacy for their children?

If people had a choice, what would that choice be?

My reflections on climate choice were abruptly interrupted by the ever more sobering understanding that, right now, so many citizens of our free, democratic nations have no choice. They go to work in the dirty energy sector for lack of a better alternative.

There are jobs to be created on both sides of the climate argument. Whether we are investing in oil or sun, coal or wind, gas or algae, the economy will be stimulated by the investment. The economy, unlike each of us, is not swayed by ideology.

So, by the time I touched down at home, I had but one, echoing thought in my mind, one aching plea for the leaders of our “free world”: Please… ask not the people if they want to work, but ask the people what they want to work towards.

Even slaves have jobs. A free man should have choice.

Another year of keeping a close watch

Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

We’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

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Published By

Evangeline Lilly

Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress best known for her role as Kate Austen in the television series "Lost."

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