Calvin Sandborn’s Speech on Retiring from the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre

Delivered to 160 former law students, clients, and First Nations leaders, June 15, 2023

This summer I leave the Environmental Law Centre, but our work is far from finished. 

• We face an unprecedented crisis in biodiversity
• And as I speak, Canada is on fire.

The question is unavoidable: Can we turn this around?

Realistically speaking, it looks very grim.  And it is particularly grim because the public is divided about whether or not human-caused climate change is real.

But there is still hope.  You can still imagine a pathway where we could:  

• Reduce greenhouse gases
• Perhaps have some rough years
• But then, 100 years from today – our great grandchildren could possibly inherit a stable climate.  Perhaps an even better climate future than we have.

We must cling to that hope.  We cannot surrender to Climate Fear.  We cannot afford the luxury of pessimism.  The stakes are too high for despair.

Our generation faces an existential choice.  As the Youngbloods put it:

“We hold the key to love and fear in our trembling hands…One key unlocks them both you know, it’s at your command.”

The fundamental question facing each of us individually is the one posed by Plato: 

“How then shall we live?”  

How do we find meaning in our lives?  How do we live a life of purpose in a world shadowed by fear?  

Today, we can certainly learn from the courage and purpose that President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian people have forged.

“There can be no greater purpose than to work together to save the future of the human race.  We have the opportunity to live lives of great purpose.” 

But here’s the thing:

There can be no greater purpose than to work together to save the future of the human race.  We have the opportunity to live lives of great purpose. 

Future generations call out to us to have courage. 

An ancient wisdom provides an answer to our dilemma.  It counsels us to choose love and hope over fear and anger.  In fact I would argue that in the struggle ahead we must be guided first by love – by a love of nature, and by love of all of our brothers and sisters – including those we don’t agree with on everything.

A loving approach is our surest way to a positive future for the human family – and the surest way to an individual life of purpose.  

A famous Vermont environmentalist put it well.  On her 100th birthday she was asked, “What advice can you give to the young – what is the secret of a meaningful life?”  And she said quite simply:

“There are three things: 

• Love yourself.
• Love others.
• Love Nature.”

The greatest prophet of our age, the Rev. Martin Luther King, lived in times as divisive as our own, fighting some of the same political currents – and some of the very same people — that we face today.

It is important to remember that Reverend King brought down the entire fascist political system of the US South, while carrying a book of his sermons entitled simply, “Strength to Love”.  

King called everyone to join together in a beloved community. He clung tenaciously to that vision, even when the Ku Klux Klan bombed his house where his wife and children lay sleeping.  

An angry crowd of King’s neighbours gathered, many vowing revenge.  One black man threatened a policeman with a gun, others brandished broken bottles.  But King stepped out onto his shattered porch — which still smelled of dynamite — and called on his neighbours to love their enemies.  

King repeatedly preached, “Segregationists are not our enemies, we will change their hearts.”  In the end, his call for a “beloved community” changed a Nation’s heart — and the apartheid system collapsed.

Today, King’s approach is needed to heal the divisiveness of our times.

I remind you that King copied the philosophy of lawyer Mahatma Gandhi, who liberated India from the mighty British Empire. Gandhi put it this way: 

“My goal is friendship with the world and I can combine the greatest love with the greatest opposition to wrong.”

In turn, another lawyer named Nelson Mandela utilized King’s methods to bring down Apartheid in South Africa.

“We here have a beloved community.  We have been drawn to this room because we have fallen in love with the Earth – and with each other.”

The idea of a “beloved community” is as compelling an idea as any in history.  We here have a beloved community.  We have been drawn to this room because we have fallen in love with the Earth – and with each other.  

We fell in love with nature in different ways:

• We have seen the photos of Earth from space – a fragile blue-green emerald with a very thin layer of air, water and land that supports the only known life in the universe.  
• We have stood open-mouthed as the orcas leapt out of the ocean.
• We have seen the heron silently stalk fish in a shallow lagoon at dawn.
• We have seen the salmon runs — tragic as Shakespeare, joyful as Easter.
• We have watched eagles clenched together, riding the updraft.
• Indigenous elders have taught us to recognize Sister Cedar.
• And they have taught us to welcome the Trout Children and “all of our relatives”.

We bonded with the natural world.  We were touched in the deep heart’s core.  

“If we are going to save Sister Cedar, the Trout Children and our grandchildren, we have to extend that beloved community to Conservatives, Republicans, and a whole bunch of people we may not agree with on other issues.”

Yes, we have fallen in love with the Earth, and with each other.

• We found community as we hiked together in alpine meadows.

• We found community as we sang songs around campfires.

• We found community as we lay on the earth under a vast canopy of stars — talking half the night with our friends, our brothers, sisters, our community.

But now, if we are going to save Sister Cedar, the Trout Children and our grandchildren, we have to extend that beloved community to Conservatives, Republicans, and a whole bunch of people we may not agree with on other issues.

Like Martin Luther King we must win them over with the truth and a beautiful vision of a Common Future – a healthy planet, with a healthy climate, jobs, houses and food for all – and a healthy future for everyone’s kids.  

If we are going to deal with the environmental crisis that we face, and if we are going to save the Earth and save the community of humanity, we must share:

• our love for Nature and its beauties and wonders; 
• our love for the Future; 
• our love for our grandchildren; 
• our love for ALL PEOPLE; and 
• our common destiny.

As far as the climate fight goes, united we stand, divided we fall. We must all stand together, or we will all fry together. We cannot afford to allow the forces of reaction to mobilize people to vote against their interests by fanning grievances.  We must fight “grievance politics” with the politics of a Beloved Community that we all share.

We must abandon finger-pointing, sneering, cynicism, and blaming other people – and invite all people to work together.  The fact is that we are all in the same boat, all on the same Earth.  We need a little less calling people out — and a whole lot more calling people in.  We need to invite and persuade everyone to work together and keep this fragile boat from sinking.

In this existential quest to save the future, we need powerful voices to speak.  Nature needs lawyers to give voice to the river and to the forest.  We need voices to speak for the grizzly and the marmot.  We need voices to speak for the caribou and the falcon.  Finally, we need voices to speak for climate and future generations.

“If you succeed you will be heroes to coming generations.”

We need our own Gandhis and Mandelas.

All of you – law students, lawyers, community leaders and community activists –you have a grand opportunity to work together now, to work in community to save the natural world.  And no life can be more meaningful, more full of purpose, more satisfying, than to work to save our Earth in this time of its greatest peril.  

If you succeed you will be heroes to coming generations.  A future Shakespeare may write of our beloved community:

“This story shall every good parent teach their child;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember’d;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters…”

Of course, if we fail, that will be tragic.  Yet, still, we will have had moments of beauty, moments of loving each other, of building community, of a noble quest more consequential than Star Wars. 

At the least, we will have lived lives of purpose.

And if we create a loving community, if we reach out to the broader community with a positive message, humanity has a much better shot at actually making it through to a beautiful future for everyone’s grandchildren.

You can do this – you stand on the side of truth, and of love, and of community and the Earth.  Remember, by protecting the Earth, you, like Gandhi, are friends of all, you’re the friends of the future.

Epilogue

And finally, now that I am old, let me take the liberty to offer a few brief tips:

• First of all, learn from your clients – the community heroes that donate thousands of hours of unpaid time to fight for our land, air and water.  They include some of the smartest – and I daresay, most noble — people you will ever meet.

• Listen to the elders.  One of the most fortunate things in my life has been the opportunity to learn from the wisdom of the resurgent Indigenous peoples of British Columbia.  

• Make friends and allies everywhere, and enemies nowhere.  Avoid the backbiting and division that has destroyed so many organizations and movements. 

• Build bridges with the visionaries in business, government and elsewhere.  There are like-minded people “on the other side”.  Don’t write people off. Win them over!

• Have fun!  Dance.  Play music.  Share joy with others.  Love each other.  It is in community that we break the epidemic of alienation that drives environmental destruction.

In closing, it is clear that the environmental crisis is daunting.  The work will not be easy.  

But take heart.  As Martin Luther King told us, the arc of history is long – but it bends towards justice.  We shall overcome.

Calvin Sandborn was Legal Director at the UVic Environmental Law Centre  for 20 years. He is also the author of Becoming the Kind Father – a Son’s Journey

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