What is your group’s objective?
Seniors for Climate Action Now! SCAN! supports the building of a mass movement to address the climate crisis - to end fossil fuels and build a just transition to renewable energy. Many of us have children and grandchildren. We are fighting for the changes needed to ensure that a livable climate is left for future generations.
Who are your constituents or core demographics?
We focus on bringing seniors into activism in climate justice. We work with people of all ages and with other organizations in Kingston and across the province seeking to advance climate justice.
What is the biggest challenge for your group right now?
The biggest challenge we face is the failure of governments to enact policies and initiatives to address the climate crisis. In Canada in particular, fossil fuel industries are very powerful and exert influence over governments and on public awareness.
What are your biggest wins to date?
We've been busy! Provincially we have been active in exposing the disastrous policies of the Ford Government. We organized to save the Green Belt, against gas plant expansion, and recently we successfully lobbied the City of Kingston municipal council to pass a motion to uphold the Ontario Energy Board ruling on Enbridge gas and oppose bill 165. We have worked with Decolonial Solidarity and Lead Now to oppose the Royal Bank of Canada’s financing of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline being built across the Wet'suwet'en territory without their consent. We successfully lobbied the local Liberal MP to petition for a cap on emissions at the federal level. SCAN! has established a presence through our various activities, and kept climate issues in the media.
What do you need most to be more effective at what you do?
We need to build a wider and larger movement to be more effective in advancing climate justice.
How do you want to support or collaborate with other groups?
SCAN! works with other climate justice groups in Kingston and across the province. Climate justice goals take an intersectional approach to activism, seeking ways to bring climate goals together with movements for social justice, as both areas are connected by the common interest of improving our community. We strive to work with Indigenous peoples and in solidarity with Indigenous struggles. Indigenous peoples are often on the front line of struggles to prevent fossil fuel development and are disproportionately impacted by climate breakdown.
Is your group seeking to coordinate with other activist groups?
Yes. We are one of the founding groups of Kingston Climate Justice Coalition (KCJC) which has come together to work more effectively, improve communication, and consolidate our efforts. We want to ensure that we move the City of Kingston forward on climate goals regarding GHG emissions reductions, and adaptation measures to protect people in the face of climate breakdown impacts of heat, flooding, and wildfires.
What is the point? Why do you fight?
We are fighting for a liveable future! We have to transition to renewable energy and stop the obscene profits of the fossil fuel industries that are stealing the future of young people and generations to come. We understand the root of climate breakdown is in greed, exploitation, and the prioritization of profit for a few over the well being of the larger community - and that has to change. SCAN! believes that coming together and acting for climate justice is the key to fighting for a better world that isn't threatened by climate breakdown. Our economic system is built for growth. We have to rebuild it for sustainability. Our economic system is built for accumulation. We have to rebuild it for sharing.Our economic system is built for extraction. We have to rebuild it for stewardship. Our economic system is built for exploitation. We have to rebuild it for fairness. Our economic system is built for inequality. We have to rebuild it for equality.
How do you handle fractures in your own group?
We are a volunteer group and emphasize participation and democratic decision making. We are elders. Some of us have experience in contributing to social justice over the years; but at the same time, many of us are new to climate justice work. We work to educate ourselves and others. We welcome new members and work to create an atmosphere of inclusion, respect and mutual learning in our meetings, our conversations with others, and in our work.
How do you decide how people join your group or enter decision making positions in your group? Do you have a screening process?
People who are interested in joining SCAN! are asked to read our statement of purpose, and join if they are in agreement with it. We then have an orientation session with the new member to introduce them to SCAN! and what we do.
SCAN! has local 'chapters' in communities across the province. SCAN! Kingston meets monthly, and SCAN! nationally meets monthly by zoom. On the whole, we organize with a participatory democracy approach, and we expect members to uphold the basic principles of SCAN! as a climate justice organization. Many climate groups are staff run; SCAN! is different because we are member led, and volunteer-run.
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