As you can see right now, I'm 20 meters off the ground in a tree canopy and I'm up here in order to block a pipeline: the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline. I've been up here continuously now for six days. This is day six, video six, of "Kurtis in a tree." So check out my series on this for more context. Okay, so, over the last few years I've felt a lot of personal guilt and it's for a lot of things: for being wealthy while people are out there struggling to feed themselves, guilt for being a settler living on land that was brutally stolen and colonized. I should recognize that I'm here right now in Coast Salish territory in British Columbia, Canada. And I felt guilt for my carbon footprint as I've learned more about climate change and the devastation that it is and will cause, I felt a lot of guilt for all of the carbon that I've put into the air up until this point in my life, especially back when I used to fly more regularly and didn't really understand the consequences of that. But I've slowly learned that guilt is not a particularly useful emotion and it actually gets us into a lot of trouble because it can cause us to not act. My sister just wrote a very good article about that and I'll leave a link to it in the video description. So that's one thing that I've kind of been learning and processing and I've spent a lot of time this year in particular trying to figure out how to, as people say, "use your powers for good" and that brings me to the fact that not everybody could be up here. And I mean that: literally. I mean I am able-bodied and I'm physically able to to climb a rope 20 meters and I have the skills to do that because I've been fortunate enough to be able to have a hobby that allows me to go outdoors and buy equipment to go rock climbing. That's--that's a privilege and I'm also privileged that I can spend six days (I've been up here for six days) and I've not been going to work. I've, uh, I've not had a job that I need to show up to in order to get food on the table. That's a privilege. And I'm privileged that I can risk being arrested and not have to worry about being deported or losing my job. And, frankly, as someone who's not a person of colour, I feel a lot less worried about police brutality. That's a privilege. But while not everybody can do this, I mean not everybody can go up 20 meters into a tree canopy in the path of a pipeline, what's important is that not everybody has to do this. Privilege comes in layers and while it's the people with the most privilege that need to do the heaviest lifting, people like me, it's also important that everyone recognizes what privileges they have and uses them for good. So to help you figure out what that might look like for you, I'm going to leave a couple links in the description. First to a video by Sarah Karver about how to use your powers, passions, and privileges, I believe, for climate action. And secondly I'll leave a link to a book called "Youth to Power: Your Voice and How To Use It" by Jamie Margolin. I've found both of those to be excellent resources for helping figure out how you can take action for issues like climate change. Climate change is ultimately the most important issue our species has ever faced and that's why I'm up here throwing everything I can at it on the front lines (or the high line maybe). That's why I'm here. And I'm also up here using my voice even though I know full well that it's losing me subscribers and i'm okay with that because that is my voice. And I'm also not making any money from these videos or from this channel because I can afford to do that. And the reason that I'm really up here is for climate change. To raise awareness about that issue. But if you are able to donate money to a cause, if that is part of your power, then I'll leave some links in the description to ways that you can help support this action. And I want to finish this video with a huge "thank you" to everyone who's supported this so far whether that's directly by coming to camp to support it or by sharing this story, ensuring the message that we need to stop the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline. And I hope that you will share the story as well and share this video and I thank you for watching.
