By Xavier Kataquapit
Windspeaker.com
My father Marius Kataquapit, a hunter, trapper and traditional person from the remote Attawapiskat First Nation, could understand the English language but seldom spoke it.
Yet every night he tuned into the late night CBC News and he encouraged me to also. He was curious about everything and he believed it was important to have an awareness of what was going on in the world even though the news was often filled with war and tragic events.
He made me aware that other outside forces had control of our lives.
Recently, I tuned into the Internet broadcast for the Doomsday Clock, which is maintained and provided by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their January 28 announcement on their YouTube channel was to move the clock’s time from 90 seconds to 89 seconds closer to midnight, the metaphorical hour or moment of Doomsday.
Watching the broadcast and listening to the panel of scientists reminded me so much of how my dad must have felt when he tuned into those late night news broadcasts when I was growing up.
The Doomsday Clock is a representation of how close we are to a man-made global catastrophe. The idea of the clock was developed in 1947 by atomic scientists who had helped to build the first atomic weapons in the Second World War.
Originally it was meant to symbolize how close we all are to catastrophe regarding nuclear weapons. But in recent decades the warnings now include dangerous technologies and activities including nuclear warfare, climate change, artificial intelligence and biological threats.
My people, the Cree of James Bay, have always been aware of the nuclear danger in the north. In the late 1950s, the Cree of James Bay witnessed the long tractor trains of equipment that moved through their communities on the winter road to remote Cold War era military stations complete with airstrips that were being built on the Hudson Bay coast.
These Mid-Canada Line stations closed down by 1965. This incursion shocked us and made us realize that there must be a serious danger to the world. It made everyone realize the insanity of nuclear weapons which could lead to the end of civilization.
Modern efficient weapons systems now mean that we are less than half an hour away from global catastrophe from nuclear Armageddon. The disturbing part is that this has not changed and we are still in imminent danger.
The dangers of global catastrophe now include the growing problem with global warming. It’s very obvious for everyone in the north to notice the change of weather.
Dad reminded us often that the seasonal James Bay winter road first started years ago in December, before Christmas, and lasted until April. Now the winter road lasts for heavy vehicles about two months or less every year.
In the winter of 2023-24, the season was so mild that it barely lasted over a month for heavy equipment to use. The warming trend is also noticeable in the summers with forest fires and it was plainly obvious with the terrible smoke dangers we faced in the summer of 2023 from raging forest fires throughout Canada.
Scientists and academics have sounded this alarm many times for decades and recently NASA was one of many organizations that announced that 2024 was the warmest year on record.
This record warm year topped the previous historic record which was in 2023. It is a scientifically measured fact that our world is definitely warming and what that means is increased dangers for our future with storms, flooding and forest fires.
These dangers also now consist of new modern developments we humans are responsible for, including technologies like Artificial Intelligence. Our use of social media that is being manipulated and affected by automated and artificial digital systems is severely affecting our democratic control of information.
It is getting harder and harder to know what is real and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. We also have to contend with the modern danger of biological threats from emerging diseases and the possibilities of another pandemic.
All of these issues are confused and confounded by disinformation, misinformation and non-information that are shouted everywhere online.
If we don’t address the immediate dangers of what could potentially destroy everything in our world, why would anything else matter? Our governments and world leaders are not doing enough to push back against the dangers of war which bring us closer to nuclear conflict.
They are not pushing back on the fossil fuel industry which is the main cause of global warming.
I am grateful to the scientists of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for alerting all of us to the danger we face however I am reminded of the fear, frustration and helplessness my dad felt when he looked out into the world for information.
Like my dad, I believe in knowing more and being aware, as knowledge is power.