For many years, I have been concerned for the present state of our planet-home.1
In a time of climate change which became climate crisis, and is now seen by many as climate catastrophe, this concern carries a sense of escalating urgency. The damage to earth’s bio-diversity is proceeding at a pace faster than previously thought. While death is deeply structured into the creative advance of life, the ecocide in our time is primarily caused by human activity, which is changing the very chemistry of the planet. Our ongoing denial of what is happening, and the observable facts of our paralysis to change our behaviour in ways commensurate to the challenges we face, is deeply distressing. At the same time, there are so many magnificent voices that have risen to advocate for our planet-home, and so much of their work is freely available on-line.
It has also become increasingly clear, that what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. An egregious example of this truth that has come into focus for me is how, over the 10+ years of Donald Trump’s intermittent presidency, other aspects of human blindness/denial have emerged. Specifically, the puzzling hold that Trump’s lies have on his MAGA base. These lies also construct the realities that most of the world’s billionaires, Congressional Republicans, leaders of other nations, must also live in. Or “perform” living in them.
The ways these lies, and the ways they are “performed” by many, was recently highlighted by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in a speech he gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Carney spoke of the rupture (not transition) we are presently living in the world.2 He described a global order that no longer operates by predictable rules to which nations and citizens, despite sometimes grievous lapses, have grown accustomed. Carney says that we cannot accept a future in which middle-sized nations only survive by appeasing bullies. Cooperation is no longer optional, but necessary. Carney cites at some length Vaclav Havel’s 1978, essay “The Power of the Powerless”, where Havel asks a simple question: “how did the communist system sustain itself?” He demonstrates how they were able to keep people living within the lie of their subjugation. Liberation came when they were able to step outside of the lie.
The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, … the illusion begins to crack.1
Picking up on that theme, Rev. Cameron Trimble wrote a recent substack in which she offers a faith perspective of “Sane Leadership for Rupture”.2 Trimble speaks of how Carney did something quite remarkable in Davos. He told the truth.
“And then he did something even rarer. He refused despair.”
She goes on to say:
“Carney’s leadership, at its best, embodied … truthfulness. He did not “perform” optimism. He did not manufacture enemies. He did not pretend compliance buys peace. He named the conditions of the moment and invited nations to meet them together.”
1 In 2023, in an article published by Queen’s University Press as “The New Universe Story as Leaven for Transformation | Encounters in Theory and History of Education”. I argued that “We need a major shift in consciousness, related to a new understanding of our place in the universe.” For more, see: https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/encounters/article/view/16591
2 Mark Carney. “Davos 2026: Special address by Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada”. Accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/yc7y3bze
For a video of Carney’s speech, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnE2HTfDivQ
3 Carney. ibid.
4 “Sane Leadership for Rupture – A Meditation” by Rev. Cameron Trimble. Available at: https://tinyurl.com/jucytaed
Veronica Dunne is a Sister of our Lady of the Missions (RNDM), who has primarily worked as an educator and counsellor in institutional and community based settings in Canada. She has also served with the RNDMs outside of Canada in Senegal, Peru, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
A 2002 Doctor of Ministry graduate from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto, she subsequently served as director of the Doctor of Ministry program at St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her current research interests are in eco-theology and cosmology, and their intersections with indigenous cosmologies and spiritualties.
She presently serves on the RNDM leadership team in Canada.
Wow, Veronica! This is such an important reflection! Thank you. Things seem to be so dire on every front. It is no longer easy to ignore what is so obvious. But maybe…..hopefully….we are beginning to move toward a new way of seeing and being in this world. I, too, refuse to despair.
Thanks so much, Veronica! An erudite reflection for sure, and like Wendy, I refused to despair. I am all for gathering around the “truth” and i am emboldened when I have others with whom to do it! At a conference I had attended, the grandson of Mahatma Ghandi, repeated his grandfather’s wisdom: we do not possess the truth, we pursue it. Blessings from Thailand where many RNDMs also heard Carney’s speech.
Exactly, Veronica! Thanks for encouraging us to listen to truth and act out of it, not falacies.