After 50 years of environmentalism, how are we doing?

Writer in residence at the University of the Fraser Valley and a co-founder of Greenpeace International, author and activist Rex Weyler will give his perspective at 2:30 p.m. on March 12 at the Abbotsford UFV lecture hall, B101.

Weyler began his work to protect the environment not long after Rachel Carson first introduced North Americans to the idea of environmentalism, and the harm we were inflicting on the planet, with her ground-breaking Silent Spring.

Today we have global heating, tar sands and ocean gyres of plastic. We have more protected areas globally but fewer species, more environmental laws and greater toxic pollution, on-going climate change summits but rising CO2 emissions. So what’s wrong? What successes can we claim, what failures must we admit?

Since the early days of environmentalism, Weyler has served in the trenches on campaigns to preserve rivers and forests, and to end whaling, sealing and toxic dumping.

He continues to be active in developing water quality legislation and forest preservation in Canada and in South America.

Weyler is the author of a number of books, including Chop Wood, Carry Water (co-authored), Blood of the Land, The Jesus Sayings, The Greenpeace Book – Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World, as well as essays and stories.

Weyler also posts the Deep Green column at the Greenpeace International website and contributes regularly to The Tyee and several other publications and sites.

While at UFV this spring, Weyler is a guest lecturer in a variety of classes, and is also completing work on his next book on energy, ecology and the economy.

The March 12 lecture is part of the UFV GreenSPEAK series, and is free and open to the public. See more at rexweyler.com, or at ufv.ca/English. You can also follow Weyler on Twitter at @rex_weyler.

– Christina Toth