Ottawa, September 2026: A few dozen electric cars hum up Wellington Street, turn signals instead of horns. At the wheel: people with hearing aids and canes, whom nobody stops anyway.
Same street, but a different word — caravan — and pretty much the opposite of the inglorious convoy from four years ago.
This protest runs on a plug instead of a tailpipe. And yet it carries more charge than the convoy ever did with its diesel engines.
“Age doesn’t protect you from resistance — and it doesn’t protect you from handcuffs either”
Bill Darnell, 80, the co-founder of Greenpeace, speaks openly about possible arrest. Michael Polanyi, 62, founder of Seniors Climate Witness, is technically too young for the old folks’ club. But as a grandfather, he’s already got his membership card in his pocket.
I myself am seventy-one, an “older hippie” with protest experience — and this news warms my old heart more than I’d like to admit. Do I belong in one of those rolling protest EVs? Of course I do.
“The Climate Grannies Say Hello”
Switzerland, April 2024: The association KlimaSeniorinnen wins against Switzerland before the European Court of Human Rights. A protected climate is a human right. Not just for seniors. It was a years-long marathon through the courts, and the “old folks” won. The reaction of the Swiss Parliament? In a statement, these elected politicians declared the ruling need not be followed.
The Swiss grannies fought it out with the courts; the Canadian seniors drive electrified to Ottawa.
The same generation at the far end of the life cycle isn’t sitting by the window waiting for death. This generation wants to soften, at least a little, the consequences of climate change for their grandchildren. But that takes political will — and old-school activism. Whoever stands at the end of the life cycle has little left to lose — and that’s exactly what makes the voice louder.
“Oxygen Shortage”
Bill Darnell says the trade war between Canada and the United Versaces of America — sorry, the United States of America — is currently sucking up all the political oxygen. The climate issue, and its dramatic trajectory, isn’t a topic anymore. Not on the first twenty pages, anyway.
Meanwhile the Carney government is walking back nearly every climate measure the Trudeau Liberals put in place. First the federal fuel tax was suspended until the new year, then came Wednesday’s quiet announcement that new gas plants and even oil pipelines won’t require environmental review. And that announcement lands in a summer when wildfire smoke has hung over Ottawa for weeks on end.
At the same time, oil demand is cratering, but Canada is gearing up for a demand that may never come.
The latest report from the International Energy Agency states that the U.S. war against Iran has “thoroughly upended the global outlook for oil consumption.” The forecast suggests oil consumption will drop as sharply as it did during the pandemic. Some countries that depend on Middle Eastern oil are busy decarbonizing their energy sources. Away from oil, toward renewables.
And the signs are clear. China is, next to the U.S., the world’s second-largest oil consumer. The Chinese government is betting heavily on electric cars and solar power, and lo and behold, greenhouse gas emissions are finally on the way down.
The U.K. now requires solar panels and heat pumps by law for nearly every new building. Pakistan and the Philippines are buying up massively more solar infrastructure from China.
There are times, says the Greenpeace founder, when he loses heart, and times when fear for the planet’s future nearly overwhelms him.
Give up? Never.
I hope that many seniors join the caravan to Ottawa in their electric cars. We old folks are sending a signal: pressure, where words no longer reach — and hope, because giving up is no longer an option. Even if the handcuffs click shut.
We’ve only truly lost once cynicism waves goodbye and gives up for good.
