Elizabeth May's Green Faith

It’s faith that keeps Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May hopeful that the world will pull together and solve the climate crisis by 2015. That’s right. Faith. A little-known fact about the woman who helped the Greens garner 6.8 percent of the popular vote in the last federal election is, she’s a devout follower of Jesus. An Anglican theology student, no less, at St. Paul University in Ottawa – a fact that’s usually buried by the Christian-hostile Canadian media.

Does it matter? She thinks so. “My faith is entirely expressed n how I do this work,” May said on the phone from Parliament Hill, days before she left for the to Poznań, Poland with the United Nations for climate change negotiations December 3 to 14. “Yes, faith is private and personal, but I think we fail in our faith as Christians if we don’t also practice it out loud.”

For Advent, I wanted to ask a couple of prominent Canadians what they think the good news of Christmas is, for 2008. What were the year’s dark spaces, and sparks of hope? What will they be contemplating this season? May jumped to mind because of her top-level work in the environment and in politics. In this context, what does Christmas mean to her?

“This has been a very difficult year,” May said. “Our failure to respond to the climate crisis is the largest sin of omission. We’re running out of time. And [with the Conservative win], losing a full year is devastating.”

In 2015, seven years from now, May has calculated that global warming will outpace humans’ ability to fix it, and we’ll be facing the unfaceable. While great things have happened on the Christian environmental front, including the 2007 publication of UnitedChurch minister Bruce Sanguin’s Darwin, Divinity and the Cosmos, the looming threat of an environmental apocalypse can easily lead to despair.

Plus, the 72 percent of the Canadian population who call themselves Christians (according to Statistics Canada) didn’t pull together for the planet in 2008. Just before the October election, a right-wing Christian coalition blitzed the media and church bulletins with a plea for “serious Christians” to put bioethical issues at the top of their voting priority list. As in, to consider abortion, cloning, stem cell research, and, inexplicably, same-sex marriage as more important issues than, say, the environment.

May’s list of 2008 dark spots is, well, pretty dark. The United Nations, she said, asked Canada for four senior military officers to serve in blue berets in Congo. Canada refused because our priority is the NATO mission in Afghanistan, she explained. Also on the international stage, she was horrified that Canada softened our nuclear non-proliferation stance. In 1968, Canada signed a treaty that allowed for the open trade of nuclear fuel and technology with four other countries only: the U.S., China, France and the U.K. At a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in July, Canada`s David Emerson voted to allow India to trade, and he told the Globe & Mail: “You can't keep somebody in the penalty box forever.”

May said, “It’s a body blow. Is this really my country? I don’t think I can bear this anymore.”

Politically, this has also been a rough year for May. But she didn’t refer to that once during our interview – though I gave her many opportunities to. In October’s federal election, the Green’s first and only seat, Blair Wilson of West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, was lost to a Conservative. Though her party earned almost seven percent of Canada’s popular vote, it didn’t garner a seat, due to our first-past-the-post system. Even with the party’s momentum and her own popularity, May lost her riding of Central Nova.

But, so it seems, that’s not what’s consuming May this Christmas. It’s hope. Great garlands of it.

First, she said, there’s still time between now and 2015 to get greenhouse gases falling. The advent-timed United Nations conference in Poland may yet reform Kyoto, or bring about a better treaty. That’s why she’s there. Hope.

Second, she said, the election of Barack Obama in the US – who will join her at the UN conference – could signal the end of the mindless dirty waste streaming for the world’s biggest polluter.

Third, she said, “We must succeed, because we can’t afford to fail.” And May believes in the power of faith and prayer to bring us there.

But the holiday isn’t all international treaties and politics for May. She celebrates each day of advent she says, and all 12 days of Christmas. On Christmas Day, she’ll be serving dinner to homeless folks at her home parish, accompanied by her daughter.

“As a practicing Christian, the birth of Jesus Christ is always good news,” she said. “But the terrible thing is, Christmas has been appropriated to a triumphant expression of consumerism and greed, which is the opposite message of Jesus.”

She urges gift-givers to exchange meaningful, earth-friendly presents, such as charitable donations and treats from 10,000 Villages. Or, her new book: Global Warming for Dummies, on shelves right now.

Comments

The_Omnissiah

Posted on: 12/10/2008 02:00

I have to give it to her, we need annoying little people who are persistant to keep us aware of what is happening, and to try and snap us out of it...now if only more people would take it seriously...

As-Salaamu Alaiykum, Eid Mubarak!

-Omni

Faerenach

Posted on: 12/10/2008 12:29

And this is why I am a really big fan of Elizabeth May. What a woman.

Arminius

Posted on: 12/12/2008 16:34

I am a member of the federal and provincial Green Party, and a great fan of Elizabeth May.

Spirituality and environmentalism can't be separated. Spirituality is eco-spirtuality, and environmentalist activity is spiritual activity. I'm very glad that Elizabeth May is aware of this, and preaches and practices it.

Green is the colour of hope, eh?