Left-to-right: Event organizer Quinn Carvey introducing panelists Tracy Glynn, Sarah Durham and Gordon Dalzell. Photo by Nomaan X. For Saint John clean air activist Gordon Dalzell, the Irvings have a license to pollute in New Brunswick. The Irving Oil Refinery in the port city is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the province. Dalzell was speaking on a panel about the climate crisis in Saint John on December 12. Joining Dalzell was Tracy Glynn, a professor in the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University. Glynn named capitalism as the root cause of the environmental crisis. “It is important to be clear about what capitalism is and does, and to name the systems of oppression that bolster capitalism and colonialism like the patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, racism,” said Glynn. Sarah Durham is a graduate student at the University of New Brunswick Saint John who studies puffin populations in the Bay of Fundy. She concurred with Glynn: “There is no such thing as sustainable capitalism. It is defined by ideas of ownership, domination, and exploitation.” “Hyper individualism convinces us that we don’t need anyone,” Durham added, when commenting on the need for more solidarity. Glynn also called for solidarity considering the forces attempting to divide people. “Immigrants are not causing the housing crisis or the cost-of-living crisis. Tar sands workers are not to blame for the climate crisis. People are just trying to survive and yet our governments are making workers pay for a crisis they didn’t create,” said Glynn while criticizing “false climate solutions.” “Fishermen on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia are losing their livelihoods because of the waste flowing into the seas from nickel mined for electric vehicles,” said Glynn, who studies the environmental and gender impacts of nickel mining in Sulawesi. Glynn noted that the latest […]