Climate Change ‘Giant’ Inspires Hope at Sheperd Lecture
Senior Greenpeace strategist Keith Stewart ’86 (Peter Robinson College) delivers lecture on Canada’s climate movement and accepts Distinguished Alumni Award
March 14, 2024
As he sat on the cold ground for 12 hours, chained to an oil company’s fence during an environmental protest and awaiting arrest by the RCMP, Keith Stewart ’86 (Peter Robinson College) says he kept thinking one thing: ‘How did I get here?’
He suddenly realized his passion for climate justice – leading him to become a senior strategist for Greenpeace Canada, a key voice against oil and gas pipelines, and dubbed a ‘Green Giant’ by Toronto media - had started at Trent University.
As a Trent student in the 1980s, Stewart had attended a climate-change lecture on campus and was so inspired that he decided to immediately “do something about it.”
“Trent has been incredibly formative for me and it’s where I got my first taste of activism” he said during the David Sheperd Family Lecture, as part of the Community Speaker Series.
Before beginning his lecture, Stewart accepted the Distinguished Alumni Award, presented by the Trent University Alumni Association for his lifetime of work pursuing climate justice at the local, national, and international level.
Stewart told the audience that to make meaningful change, one must find a piece of the system that is realistic to challenge, and then use a metaphorical crowbar to make that part of the system fall apart in a useful way.
“We can’t stop climate change, but we can interrupt the system and then find the next place to throw in a crowbar and twist,” he said. Sometimes a ‘win’ means losing less than you could have, he said, adding that activism didn’t stop oil sands production but has significantly reduced its output.
That kind of ‘micro victory’ was inspiring to Willem Jacobson, a fourth-year Ecological Restoration student, who says he attended the lecture because he was feeling hopeless about climate change.
“His talk gave me back a bit of hope that, with enough little pokes, even giants can fall,” Jacobson said.
The lecture provided Nolan Parsons, a fourth-year Geography student, with a broader understanding of the societal challenges involved with climate change such as anti-science sentiments, political interference, and the influence of the fossil fuel industry.
“I usually focus on technical data and graphs when considering climate change but Keith gave me a more qualitative understanding of the issues,” Parsons said.
Alumna Wendy Harding ’78 (Peter Robinson College) enjoyed the lecture and being around ‘like-minded souls.’ “We moved back to Peterborough three years ago and part of the reason was to be closer to Trent so we can join lectures like these and continue to expand our learning,” she said.
Don’t miss the next lecture in the Community Speaker Series as the Gilbert Ryle Lecture on Monday, March 18 will feature philosophy professor Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel.