In the world of globalization, the fossil fuel masters of the universe who are digging up our boreal forest and our muskeg and scraping out the bitumen would rather have Canadians take all the risks - and then the oceans take the risks to ship it to refineries that they've already built in other countries rather than create jobs for Canadians here.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the exploitation of Canada's natural resources for the benefit of foreign entities while neglecting local job creation.
In this quote, Elizabeth May highlights the detrimental impact of globalization on Canada's environment and economy. She argues that foreign companies are extracting fossil fuels from Canadian lands, such as boreal forests and muskeg, prioritizing their profits while ignoring the potential for job creation within Canada. This critique suggests that Canadians bear the environmental and economic risks while large corporations benefit, ultimately raising concerns about the sustainability and ethics of such practices.
In practice
In a speech about environmental policy, this quote can emphasize the need for responsible resource management.
I was known as an activist, described by CBC's 'The Fifth Estate' as 'the 23-year-old waitress who stopped the pulp company dead in its tracks.' Without knowing it was even possible, my activism helped me gain admission to Dalhousie University law school.
It is personal - deep in my bones and my flesh - the knowledge that we squandered our chance to avoid the climate emergency; to act when it would have been so much easier, as we did to stop acid rain, to save the ozone layer.
If we're serious about our kids having a livable world, building fossil fuel infrastructure in 2018 is a sign of deep negligence, which is the kindest thing I can say about it.
To drown a river beneath its own impounded water, by damming, is to kill what it was and to settle for something else. When the damming happens without good reason . . . then it's a tragedy of diminishment for the whole planet, a loss of one more wild thing, leaving Earth just a little flatter and tamer and simpler and uglier than before.
Everywhere I look, I see something holy.
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
Nature promotes mutualism. The flower nourishes the bee. The river waters quench the thirst of all living beings. And trees provide a welcoming home to so many birds and animals. There is a rhythm to this togetherness.
Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.
What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
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