Caua Speech at Halt the Hike
Laurie Adkin & Olivia Labelle
Hello, Halt the Hik-ers. My name is Olivia Labelle and I am a Member of the Climate Action Coalition at the University of Alberta. The Climate Action Coalition supports wholeheartedly the opposition to tuition hikes because well-educated citizens and the research that universities and colleges provide are critical to responding effectively to the climate crisis and all of the related problems we face.
The Climate Action Coalition was formed in February 2020 to bring together students, faculty, and staff who want their university to truly lead in responding to the climate emergency.
We advocate for greater investment in interdisciplinary research and curriculum related to the climate crisis.
We demand that our university divest from fossil fuels.
We support the call to the Students’ Union to stop banking with Canada’s biggest financier of fossil fuel extraction: the Royal Bank of Canada.
We want to see university research collaborations with all sectors of Alberta’s society, implementing climate solutions.
We want administrators to filter all decisions about operations and facilities and land use through the filter of ecological sustainability.
We want the university’s decisions in every sphere to be consistent with decolonization.
We want this university to mobilize all of its resources to help fight for our future.
We are in the midst of a historically unprecedented global upheaval of every aspect of human existence. We are shifting from globalized fossil capitalism to what is still a contested future–one we hope will be net zero carbon and will prevent a global temperature rise beyond the 2C that is already locked in. If not, our lives will be filled with pandemics, extreme weather, mass migration, political unrest… The list goes on.
We deserve the chance to avoid this future, don’t we? DON’T WE?
Tuition hikes deny us the opportunities we deserve to fight the crisis that our generation has inherited. We are being denied the opportunity to participate in building the Alberta of the future to our full potential.
Tuition hikes deny us the opportunities we deserve to fight the crisis that our generation has inherited. We are being denied the opportunity to participate in building the Alberta of the future to our full potential.
Our universities and colleges have all the resources needed to help Albertans make this leap, working with Indigenous knowledge holders and citizens.
The biggest obstacles to effective action to stop global warming are not technological but political. How can we make our governments accountable to citizens and future generations? Education and research in the arts and sciences play essential roles in forming educated citizens who understand what is at stake and what needs to be done. Citizens who can distinguish between credible sources of knowledge and misinformation. Citizens who can critically assess policy responses to the crisis. And citizens who can push for the needed reforms of our democratic institutions–from our electoral system to the regulation of media.
Science, Business, Arts, Law, Agriculture, Environmental Science, and Engineering students will help to phase out our economic dependence on the extraction and export of fossil fuels and make a rapid transition to a post-carbon economy that provides sustainable livelihoods and income security
Agriculture, Engineering, Arts, Business, Kinesiology and Environmental Science, students will aid in designing and (re)building urban environments to rely on public transit, be bike and pedestrian-friendly, make buildings more energy efficient, build affordable, zero-carbon housing, create urban forests, and so much more . . .
Agriculture and Environmental Science and Science students will aid in growing food production using ecological methods and in ways that protect and restore biodiversity
Education, Arts, Medicine, Kinesiology, Nursing and Law students will aid in improving access to human services like health care, child care, elder care, social welfare, and education while improving the quality and working conditions of these services
Indigenous studies, Law and Arts students will aid indigenous groups in transferring land back to First Nations so that they can develop viable, self-governed economies that provide for their people’s needs, decolonizing our laws, institutions, and culture
Arts and Law students will aid in addressing the root causes of crime, violence, homelessness, and addictions
Graduate students will aid in engaging citizens in planning; researching policy options, e.g., for better public health care
Science, Agriculture and Environmental Science students will aid in developing the scientific knowledge needed for environmental monitoring in many areas.
Our government and post-secondary executives must Halt the Hikes and reverse them, so that young Albertans will have the resources we need to make this leap to an ecologically sustainable future.
