‘We know this is an issue. You can’t see the president of the United States and the Pope talking about this in such vehement terms and not think there’s something we should do,’ says Sea Sick author Alanna Mitchell.

PUBLISHED May 1, 2015, THE HILL TIMES

Canadians are ready for a serious conversation on how to tackle climate change and the federal government is nowhere to be found on the issue, says award-winning Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis author Alanna Mitchell.

“I think they’re missing a great chance. The way I read it is that Stephen Harper understands this issue pretty well. He’s a smart guy. I’ve met him. I think he understands it as well as anybody understands it and he’s chosen not to deal with it for reasons that have to do with how he sees our economic system functioning,” Ms. Mitchell, a former Globe and Mail science and environment reporter, told The Hill Times today.

“I think if he thought he was going to lose the next election on this issue, he would very smartly try to follow the U.S. and other countries on this issue. So I think he doesn’t see this as an election issue. If he did, he would move pretty swiftly on it.”

Ms. Mitchell is in Ottawa as part of the NAC’s Ontario Scene to perform her one-woman play Sea Sick, based on her 2009 book, at The Gladstone Theatre. She said that since the Liberals tried to talk about climate change and the environment in the 2008 election with its Green Shift platform—and failing to make headway—Canadians have done some “soul searching” and are prepared to talk about it during the upcoming election.

“I think we’re in a different place philosophically. We’re certainly in a different place technologically than we were then,” she said.

“The parties have been spooked by that 2008 election, unfortunately, apart from Elizabeth May. I think Canadians would welcome it in fact. We want a discussion. We know this is an issue. You can’t see the president of the United States and the Pope talking about this in such vehement terms and not think there’s something we should do. We need to step up to the tape and people know that.”

In her book, Ms. Mitchell wrote that Tim Flannery’s book The Weather Makers, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth and the comprehensive report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern were the “one-two-three punch that has convinced the public that global climate change is more than, well, hot air.” She said there’s been “immense progress” since.

“I’m really, really encouraged,” she said of how climate change and the environment has captured the public’s and world-wide government’s attention. She noted especially the dialogue on climate change in the United States and the leadership from President Barack Obama, most recently at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

“There was the president talking about climate change and the absurdity of the people who refuse categorically to accept the science. You’ve got the Pope. This stuff is all really big and symbolic, but it’s more than symbolic,” she said, noting there is also a lot of new technology that makes it easy to see the impact of change.

“In parts of the U.S. it’s actually cheaper to use renewable electricity than it is to use electricity off the grid. It’s cheaper to produce and cheaper to purchase. That’s in the U.S. I see lots of signs of hope. It’s gone way beyond Gore—way beyond.”

In her play, Ms. Mitchell talks about the themes also found in her book—that the oceans are where we should be focusing when it comes to climate change. Oceans cover 70 per cent of the earth’s surface. One-third of the greenhouse gas emissions are entering them and 80 per cent of the extra heat created by climate change is absorbed in the ocean.

“Some scientists I have met argue that instead of calling this the age of ‘global climate change,’ we should call it the era of ‘global ocean change’ or ‘marine climate change.’ These terms are both much more accurate and more worrisome,” she wrote in her book.

She told The Hill Times that while people understand how greenhouse gas emissions affect climate patterns or water cycles, they don’t see or know how it impacts oceans and why it’s “more dire” than one would think.

“Part of the reason the ocean is in such trouble is because of the carbon load in the atmosphere and that’s from fossil fuels,” she said. “It’s changing the temperature, the amount of dissolved oxygen and the pH level of the ocean. The ocean is becoming ‘warm, breathless and sour’ is the way scientists put it. Together that’s much worse than if it were just one of those issues on its own.”

The oceans are under distress, Ms. Mitchell wrote in her book. “This change is happening all over the world. And this is having a profound effect on many of the creatures that live in the ocean,” she wrote. “At the same time, our search for food from the sea has resulted in the removal of massive quantities of creatures from the global ocean. In itself, that’s a problem. And it’s exacerbated by the changes we’re also causing through carbon dioxide and heat, because life in the sea helps regulate the sea’s physical and chemical properties. When we remove so much life, we’re also removing one of the ways in which the ocean can keep its systems stable.”

While in the nation’s capital, Ms. Mitchell is meeting with the Parliamentary All-Party Oceans Caucus at a luncheon on May 4 to discuss her play. She said she doesn’t have a message for the caucus members, but rather a request: “I’d like to ask them to join me in this journey that we’re going on together in this incredibly intimate theatre space.”

The play came about after artistic director Franco Boni saw her during a public talk on the book. He said he wanted to help her turn it into a play and she said yes immediately.

“It was one of those things that I didn’t think too deeply about, I just thought okay, there’s maybe a way of doing this that will make it work for an audience. So I started,” she told The Hill Times.

It’s one of the most difficult things she’s ever done in her life, she said. The pair brought in another artistic director, Ravi Jain, and the three of them sat in a room for weeks to develop the play, which is presented differently from her public talks and her book.

“They would just ask me questions and ask me questions about why I had done all the research for Sea Sick. Every time I gave them an answer, they would say, ‘No, no, there’s more. So it got into the whole idea of why do I do journalism, why do I write about science, why is it important, why is this the time to try do it, and try to explain these ideas to people. And why would we do it in an art form? What was that about?”

So far, she said, the feedback’s been good from audiences across Canada. People who go to see the play are theatre-goers, not necessarily the environment/climate NGO crowd, she said, and don’t necessarily know the issues or have not previously read the book. “I forget how shocking it is for people,” she said.

“Part of the reason to do the play is to try to take people into an emotional arc. I think there’s a real emotional journey that people go on in the audience. Sometimes it’s a really big journey for people. Sometimes it isn’t, but you know, we have people who cry and it’s not from sorrow—I think it’s from relief. They feel somehow as they’ve gotten past something. What we’re trying to do with the play is to talk about a way forward, to try to explain what’s going on, but also not to leave people in this terrible pit of despair. I know that place. I’ve been there myself, so we’re trying to get people to come out of it and think about the future.”

Sea Sick, produced by The Theatre Centre, runs from May 2-4. Tickets are $30.