climate amnesia

canada’s cultural moment and the climate emergency are one and the same

[amnesia: the loss of memories, including facts, information and experiences]

Note: a narrated version of this posting is available here,

In April 2025, during the 2025 Canadian federal election, David Maggs, Sarah Garton Stanley (SGS) and Owais Lightwala launched Create Canada whose purpose was to create :

• a space for generating bold, actionable ideas that harness the power of culture to supercharge Canada in a rapidly changing world.

I welcome this initiative because of its potential to deepen conversations about the role of culture as Canada faces existential threats from the regime of our southern neighbour.

I did not agree with all their postings but I saw merit in their efforts.

In parallel, I produced e214 roundtable – this moment in canadian culture, which Owais and SGS kindly joined. You’ll hear more about this below.

I hope Create Canada and this conscient roundtable are a couple of many such conversations and reflections from coast to coast to coast, in as many different languages and formats as possible.

I wrote a series of comments in response to some of Create Canada’s ideas.

For example, in response to Dear Prime Minister, I wrote:

• I know I sound like a broken record about the ecological crisis but we are currently experiencing a period of amnesia on this, amplified by the US crisis. If you think back to say 2019, climate change was a major issue of public concern. The situation has only gotten worse since then. We need to include the environment in any cultural framework future forward. I made the case for this in my ‘Letter to the arts community about the ecological crisis’ last fall on my ‘a calm presence’ Substack.

• My observation with your letter is that it does not refer enough to the climate or the ecological crisis, which will soon overtake every aspect our lives. This reality is our ultimate cultural challenge, which I think needs to be approached with ‘curiosity, humility, relational depth, and a willingness to sense beyond inherited horizons’ as Vanessa Andreotti often suggests.

With all due respect to my colleagues, why leave out climate?

All three co-authors of Create Canada are known art/climate advocates.

For example, Owais Lightwala, in e194 owais lightwala and sgs - manifesting for now observed that:

• The majority of individuals who work in this sector are deeply concerned about climate change and deeply motivated and often doing a lot about it in their personal lives but as a sector, we don't really have a vision of what our relationship is to it. So the kinds of responses range from a kind of silence on it and trying not to look at it directly in the eye to a superficial level of conversation, saying things like touring requires flying : flying bad, therefore, we should stop touring.

Why be ‘kind of silent’ on climate at this time?

Here are some perspectives…

Annette Hegel, e214 roundtable – this moment in canadian culture:

• We’re coming to the end stages of capitalism and colonialism and we’re all trying to kind of fumble in the dark, looking for new ways.

Robert R. Janes, e209 robert and peter janes – telling the truth through art :

• We know what we need to do to weather this storm. But I guess the sacrifice and the suffering it's going to cause is just too much for people's imagination.

Max Wyman, e214:

• The crisis is not about the plight of the artist. I think it’s about what the artist can do to find joy, help people find joy and meaning and grace and courage in a world that right now doesn’t seem to offer much of that.

Robin Sokoloski, e214:

• Art is in the relationship.

In spite of the good words my colleagues above, I continue to struggle to find a balance point between ‘finding joy’ in this present moment and ‘looking for new ways’ to ensure the joy of future generations.

Also, if ‘art is in the relationship’ (and I think it is) then how can art help us awaken and reconnect at this critical time?

So, with a copious amount of curiosity and humility, here’s how I think Create Canada’s five ideas can be enriched:

1. Cultural Wellbeing Index

Include monitoring of climate adaptation efforts as a form of cultural wellbeing and measure the impact of culture on ecological activities such adaptation and regeneration (see Participatory Culture Budgeting below)

2. Canada Culture Pass

Place emphasis and provide resources to create access for activities that deepen the public’s understanding of the root causes of the climate and nature emergencies such as colonialism, extractive capitalism, etc.

3. Arts and Culture Corps

Expand the scope of this corps to become an Arts, Culture and Climate Corps with a mandate to rethink cultural systems as a whole and reimagine their role in support life on earth.

4. Community Cultural Operation Fund

Ensure that repurposed and revitalized cultural spaces can provide disaster and emergency relief for the dispossessed through infrastructure and cultural support.

5. Participatory Culture Budgeting

Expand the invitation to citizens to include co-creation with artists on restoration, regeneration, adaptation, revisioning activities etc. In other words widen the budgeting exercise and get everyone involved on reinventing the world. Anything less is too little too late.

In addition, I remind readers of the 5 action points from e214:

1. Acknowledge the ongoing nature of crisis and disruption, particularly in the arts sector

I have found that acknowledging the reality of the ecological crisis creates synergies for action. In an upcoming episode of conscient podcast arts policy expert Kelly Wilhelm talks about how it is our world that is in crisis more than the arts sector.

2. Focus on deep listening and understanding the value of art within communities

This action point reminded me of this quote by Chris Creighton-Kelly in e214 (for more from Chris also see e215 chris creighton-kelly – optimism of the will) :

• Instead of thinking of outreach and trying to convince people and tell them about how great the arts are, we need to do in-reach, we need to go into communities and listen to people, go where people are and understand what it is they understand about their cultures, plural. And their art practices plural. And after that process, maybe there's something to be said.

3. Deconstruct and pluralize the concept of Canadian culture, embracing multiplicity and diverse voices

Plurality and diversity is a recurring theme in conscient podcast episodes, for example, in relation to privilege, e164 jimmy ung - proximity proportionate responsibility:

• If we were to do an inventory of where all the things we own were made, that would give us a very interesting map of where our responsibility, our attention and our donations ought to go because our pressures on the global systems can be revealed.

4. Recognize the importance of both large-scale advocacy and grassroots community engagement

Create Canada is an ideas initiative that stimulates the imagination and generates possibilities. We need this kind of broad public engagement at this time, however, on the longer term, most of this work will be implemented at a local level, for example, at the Rideau Community Hub in Ottawa, as suggested by Luc Lalande in e191 luc lalande - community arts during times of crisis:

• We have folks who would never define themselves as artists, but are nonetheless creative and have ideas and are imaginative. How can we get them to feel that they can do arts and express their creativity?

5. Seek out joy and connection as a means of addressing broader systemic challenges

This is a key question. As noted earlier by Vanessa Andreotti, one of our current challenges is to ‘sense beyond inherited horizons’. In other words, for me, this means overcoming multiple levels of unconscious bias and social conditioning.

I think the arts can help us address these systemic challenges, however, the arts are also part of the problem of modernity, which is a dilemma.

I don’t have any clear answers at this point on this dilemma but I’m slowly writing a posting on this topic called ‘l’art est more : vive l’art’.

I’ll be leaning on learnings from upcoming conscient podcast episodes such as with writer Adam Kahane on systems change and radical engagement and artist and organiser Lallan in India about community art and social change.

So, to conclude…

I think this moment in culture in Canada and the climate emergency are one and the same.

Both culture and climate are agents of change who need each other. It’s only a question of time before they synergize to help us find Annette Hegel’s ‘new ways’.

Thanks for your time.

This posting is a bit longer than usual. :-)

Sharing and feedback are always welcome.

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After thought

I sometimes think that we all should just live our lives as best we can and not worry about all of this stress : you know que sera sera…

But then I think of the horror of a 3C + warmer planet and of the needs of future generations of humans and more-than-humans, in particular in places like here in Delhi, India where summer heat reach up to 50C.

With this reality in mind, I get right back to work recording and sharing the efforts of artists/cultural workers and their creative proposals for a better future.

It helps me deal with the stress and strain of these times.

BTW the cover illustration for this posting was created by me with flowers petals and leaves from the Sunder Nursery at the Humayun Tomb complex, Delhi on May 6, 2025.