‘Be Careful You Don’t Burn Yourself’

I’m drenched, biking home in my work clothes in July. In the morning chaos getting out the door to daycare and summer camp, it was a win that I’d remembered to pack my own lunch. I didn’t pack my rain gear.

I don’t mind. I'm grateful for the rain.

Four provinces away, one of my closest friends is parenting her infant through apocalyptic smoke in Toronto. We exchange voice memos about climate anxiety and parenting, how to hold the grief and the rage and the love all at once.

My eldest was a year old during the 2021 heat dome that killed 619 people in B.C. I viscerally remember trying to keep her cool in a big bucket of water while my partner went on an urgent mission to install an air conditioning unit at his 97-year-old grandfather's care home.

It was 44 C outside. My child was so small.

I remember talking to my childhood best friend later that summer while my toddler played on a crispy lawn. I weighed the risks of going on a bucket-list family trip to Shuswap Lake with my terminally ill mother-in-law, worried about getting stuck on the road with fires on both sides.

“They’ll close the highway if it gets too close,” my father said. “You’ll be fine.”

We went. We bailed out early when the acrid smoke hit our lungs hard.

We left under ashy, orange skies.

We’re raising our kids in the world we used to warn was coming

Back on the coast, I get home from work and lock up my bike. My toddler thinks it’s hilarious that I’m so soggy. I change my clothes, then head to the kitchen, where she helps me fill the pasta pot with water.

She scoops sliced leeks and mushrooms into the pan, one handful at a time. I remind her to be careful not to burn herself.

I remember when my friend in Toronto and I were students, nearly two decades ago now. We organized protests, we gave guest lectures on Canadian climate policy, we punched in calling card numbers to join conference calls organizing a national youth climate convergence. We worried about sea level rise and frontline communities and drought and humanitarian disasters.

I studied environmental science, policy and economics. The government of the day muzzled its scientists. Yet Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius posited human-driven climate change in 1896.

Knowledge has not been enough.

I look away for a moment. My toddler — despite my warning moments earlier — gets a bit of hot pasta water on her hand. My partner steps in to help her run her hand under cold water. She cries, then quiets, reassured.

Four provinces away, Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation has burned to the ground. Abandoned by federal and provincial governments, they had no help getting out from emergency services.

They escaped by boat.

I dream of fire and awaken to accelerating fossil fuel expansion

I remember the stress dreams I had the summer I birthed my second child. Waking up with my heart racing, I reassured myself I could carry both kids to the ocean if fire threatened our home. I researched whether we could survive the smoke from a bad fire while we stood in the ocean, or if we’d suffocate anyway.

I realize I'm crying, my tears joining the steam as I stir the pasta. How can it be that Canada’s supposedly smartest prime minister in a generation has spent the summer scrapping climate targets and promoting fossil fuel expansion?

If Canadians turned to Mark Carney as a reassuring father figure amidst Trumpian disruption, isn’t he supposed to be reminding us all not to burn ourselves?

It breaks my heart to explain political reality to my kids, to explain who will be hurt most and who will keep getting richer. I’m angry at how much they’ll need to know, and at how much the dozens of reasons I can give them still don’t make sense. It’s nonsensical.

I quickly wipe away my tears, not ready tonight to talk to my kids about my heartbreak, my fear, or my bruised hope that humanity will somehow get its act together. That people will protect each other.

I think about all the people I studied and organized with, many of us now parenting our own children, also having these big feelings while we try to get dinner on the table.

All those passionate people I marched and organized with, and all the different ways most of us are still pushing for change. I think about those of us who have been able to install heat pumps and invest in air purifiers; I think about those of us who haven’t had that privilege.

I think about a client I finished a financial modelling project for today; they support training for the next generation of climate organizers. I think about my fellow cargo-biking parents, embracing the joy and efficiency of getting our families around on two wheels.

I will tell them how hard we tried

I call my six-year-old in to set the table. She grumbles, and we talk about how in our family we all try to be helpers.

I try to settle my nervous system. If our governments are not going to act, community and mutual aid will be everything.

I remind myself about all the ways our family tries to show up in community, the ways we all hold each other up. I plan to circulate some of the donation links in support of the northern Ontario wildfire evacuees once the kids are asleep. I send some texts to a community group I’m part of that’s campaigning for a municipal heat protection bylaw.

Dinner is ready. I serve. We sit around the table. My kids don’t notice my red eyes.

Someday they will ask me what we did about the climate emergency. We tried so hard, I will say. We knew, we organized, we pushed for change.

I hope I will be able to say we finally came to our collective senses. It will be hard, I will say, but we will make it through.

We have effective policy now, better infrastructure, an economy built for a safe future for all. We have smart, competent leaders who are acting in our collective best interests and understand the hard work ahead. Things will get better, I will say. I hope.

We finish eating, and I step away to write these words while my partner plays with the kids. It grounds me, pouring out feelings onto the page, not yet sure if I’ll show them to anyone.

Outside, the rain quiets to a steady patter. It’s time to put the kids to bed.