forces of nature

wintersun2011.jpg

I’ve been struggling to put words together, more than is usual even for me, about the horrific events in Japan, all that devastation caused not just by a powerful earthquake in a country that has them so frequently but the even more destructive tsunami that followed, then the nuclear explosions and meltdowns that seem to be continuing and is so worrying for all of us around the world.

Our past several days have been focused on the news coming over the internet and television, a long phone chat with an older Japanese-Canadian friend living in Ontario, and a call and email from our eldest daughter wondering about some of her friends in Japan where she’d been an exchange student and about an exchange student who stayed with us several months long ago. We have many Japanese friends here in Vancouver that we are thinking of and wondering how their families back in Japan are doing. Knowing these people is making the tragedy even more profoundly felt. There are always earthquakes and tragedies around the world, and we feel sorrow for all the people that are hurt, but this one seems to have even more of an impact on us this weekend because of some of those personal connnections, I suppose.

And we cannot forget that the west coast of Canada is also in a powerful earthquake zone. How prepared are we?

Yesterday, Sunday evening, we turned on the TV to something else, the film Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie on CBC. Please read Erika’s blog post about this profoundly moving and powerful film that we recommend highly and found curiously and disturbingly timely right now. The film covers Dr. Suzuki’s own history as a Japanese-Canadian child sent to an internment camp during the second World War, his experiences with racism, learning about Hiroshima, then becoming a scientist and eventually the ‘godfather of environmentalism in Canada’, all interspersed with his Legacy lecture, which reminds us how much human interference has created a huge problem on the natural world. The film has been out in theatres for a while and is still being shown here and there. If you can pick up CBC TV where you are, it will be aired again on April 3rd. Lots of film clips at the CBC link to explore as well, and there is the book too, all these to celebrate Suzuki’s upcoming 75th birthday.

We went to bed last night with sore hearts for our friends and worries for the future of this planet and our children, while trying to hold close David Suzuki’s words of hope.

March 14, 2011 in Canada and BC, Current Events, Environment, Films by Marja-Leena