Sackville is a small town. From your house or your office (unless your office is in your house), you can hear if demonstrators are on the streets shouting through a microphone or singing slogans, etc.
Yesterday was Friday February 28, 2020. It was a big event in one of NB prestigious universities located in Sackville (Bambi will name Mount Allison University ?). It was open house day where potential students, and their families, come to visit the campus and town. They meet with university staff, professors, and students. They spend a whole day at the university to get a flavour of what to expect, if they chose this place for their undergraduate studies in the coming year.
From a promotional perspective, this day is definitely one of the most significant ones to charm and recruit new students.
It is on such a day that a group of environmental “crusaders” chose to pressure the school with their divest from fossil fuel passionate activism. This is likely not very appealing to visitors (perhaps quite attractive to some others, who knows?).
Bambi could hear the: “Keep it in the ground” chant (in referral to fossil fuel or oil). It was like a loud mantra repeated over and over to the point that Bambi thought to herself: “Thank goodness, I do not have kids to send them to our Canadian schools nowadays” (yes, there is a good side to everything, including childlessness).
Why is Bambi saying this? Not because she does not think that it is noble to take care of our planet/environment. Not because she does not think highly of those students or professionals with them who want to feel congruent in their lifestyle (with their morality). On the contrary, we do need people who stand up for their values and who keep our political elites accountable on the environmental front. Thank you for this. However, it is a different story when environmentalism becomes too radical to the level we are observing nowadays in Canada and in the Western world by extension. Bambi would not be surprised even if in the next few years, we may see a new form of terrorism, an environmental one (a little bit like the FLQ or Northern Island militias of the past or Islamism or any form of radical movement, independent of the noble cause underlying it).
It is with this spirit that Bambi woke up this morning to news of the death of a great scientist and apparently wise man, Dr. Freeman Dyson:
https://www.businessinsider.com/legendary-physicist-freeman-dyson-death-age-2020-2
Many of our town’s loud activists will likely dismiss Dr. Dyson altogether or won’t stop to listen to his insights and understand the nuance he is bringing to the climate change (or global warming) popular narrative.
If you are like Dr. Dyson, someone who does not accuse people who do not agree with you of being traitors, you may wish to listen to this interview with him, conducted in 2015.
Rest in peace Dr. Dyson. Thank you for your long career, your contribution to science, and for your common sense.
