Like all profs I have been lecturing online since lockdown. Today is my last lecture in @uofg Local Environmental Management. Sad day as I won't have opportunity to personally thank my students, wish them well as they graduate and go off to try to make the world a better place

It was my hope to end the term with a few reflections about our responsibility, as human animals, to our biological kin that we share this precious planet with - something that has been brought into sharp relief in my mind in light of the COVID19 crisis

David Suzuki and I have explored these ideas in the past in some of our writings, but I'll share them now. It begin's with a remarkable quote by American poet Gary Snyder: "“The most radical thing you can do is stay home.”

Gary Snyder has been quoted as saying, “The most radical thing you can do is stay home.” While the phrase has particular meaning now in fight aginst #COVID19, Suzuki and I have written about it's significance to place & profound power of communities coming together to protect it.

Snyder’s poetic description of what is a radical is an appropriate portrayal of our obligation to protect our natural home. The word “radical” originates with the Latin for “root” or “having roots”. For many Indigenous Peoples, their presence in place is ancient and deeply rooted

Until COVID, our presence in place was ephemeral at best: we could easily escape our homes & live anywhere by choice. For others (like my parents) & millions of other migrants/refugees, native heartlands were abandoned for new homelands to escape political violence & persecution.