Top scientists responsible for the “Doomsday Clock” issued a stark warning about how close the world is to catastrophe due to the climate emergency, nuclear weapons, and “disruptive technologies in other domains.” Launched by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 as a symbol for “how close we are to destroying our world,” the clock remains at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year straight.

A zoning law would have opened up the southern Argentinian province of Chubut to large-scale mining by multinational corporations. But the law was defeated in just five days by an alliance of environmentalists, workers, youth, and indigenous people. Their fight points the way forward for other movements around the world.

In this interview, Indigenous climate activist, writer, and filmmaker Clayton Thomas-Müller talks to Canadian Dimension about his new memoir, Life in the City of Dirty Water, which recounts his early years of dislocation growing up in the core of the Manitoba capital—from the domestic and sexual abuse he endured to the drugs he sold to survive—to his career as a campaigner for 350.org.

The nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine has made Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov powerful enemies within Centerra and the Canadian government, which continue their legal attacks on the country while Japarov increases his presidential powers. As the optimistic January 2022 deadline approaches, there is little indication the hostility that has characterized the Kumtor negotiations will subside in the coming weeks.

The world’s wealthiest live in Le Guin’s Omelas: while they may or may not be “happy,” they have access to everything they could ever want. The only cost? The four billion people in the “basement” of the world, the Global South, who are being driven past the brink into a future that would be unimaginable if it weren’t already here, with water sources running dry, forests burning and crops failing.

Addressing climate without energy justice is only a new version of colonialism, even if it’s clothed in green. In the words of Vijaya Ramachandran, director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute, “Pursuing climate ambitions on the backs of the poorest people in the world is not just hypocritical—it is immoral, unjust, and green colonialism at its worst.”

We traveled to Wet’suwet’en territory to learn about the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre. The centre is located in the northwestern part of British Columbia on the territory of the Unist’ot’en—one of five house clans comprising the Wetsuwet’en Nation. It is a remote and rural area and most people living in southern urban communities are unaware of the remarkable activity taking place there to “heal the land and heal the people.”

Canada, like most of the Western (wealthy) world, is a self-styled “liberal democracy,” broadly considered the gold standard in global development. Liberal democracies are founded on a commitment to universal human rights and freedoms, values codified in international law. But in the last week in Canada, we have seen these liberal values rocked to their core.

Arms manufacturers and militaries utilize propaganda to hype Chinese military power to rationalize expenditures on weapons of war. This gobbles up public resources required for a just transition away from fossil fuels. Whatever lies and exaggerations the militarists may pedal, it’s the Western-led military–industrial complex we should be most worried about—and the environmental movement needs to confront this reality head-on.

While those who hold political power drag their feet when dealing with the causes and impacts of climate change, it is instructive to consider the circumstances in which they demonstrate that they are perfectly capable of taking swift and decisive action. Indeed, when it comes to protecting fossil fuel interests, supporting corporate profits, crushing Indigenous resistance, their alacrity was fully on display in BC.