EDMONTON - There is usually a lot of anger within youth groups when it comes to government, but the chairwoman of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition conference says there is also a willingness to be open-minded.
Aftab Erfan said that along with the inevitable dissention at a panel discussion on the Alberta oilsands at the coalition's weekend conference in Edmonton came some surprising cohesiveness when it came to planning for the future.
For example, she was impressed when the panel, which included environmental, community and aboriginal groups, heard from a government official.
"This is actually a reasonable guy and is thinking about some of the same things we are thinking about but is in a system that is not letting things go as quickly as we would like," she said.
"We kind of need a sense of where it is we are going. Otherwise, we could be getting somewhere that we didn't want to go."
More than 100 young Canadians from across the county converged on the University of Alberta to learn more about Alberta's oilsands and their social and environmental impacts.
Paul Baker, an organizer for the event, said the goal isn't to re-enforce any pre-existing opinions.
"We want to give them as much information as possible so that they can take it, sit with it for a while and really make a critical decision for themselves," Baker said.
He said the panel really "hit the point home" that the oilsands are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
"When it comes to climate change we really have to focus in on those emitters," Baker said.
The coalition formed three years ago in response to the UN Climate Change Conference in Montreal. Baker said the youth organizations that would eventually form the coalition felt Canada's stance wasn't strong enough. They were particularly dismayed by Canada's decision not to implement the reductions needed to meet the Kyoto protocol.
At their first meeting, the oilsands were flagged as an issue that needed to be addressed.
Erfan noted that for those coming to the conference from outside of the province there was a lot of myth surrounding the Alberta oilsands.
For instance, she said, most of the delegates thought the oilsands are located in a remote region of northern Alberta where nothing else is around.
But once they learned the facts, some were even more concerned.
"The fact that there are communities around these developments is a surprise to a lot of people," said Erfan, who is from Vancouver. "It just feels that much more urgent."
There was much talk at the conference about the need to move away from oil toward more environmentally friend forms of energy.
For Erfan, there isn't even a question -- she sees the change as a necessity for survival.
Larissa Shasko, a Green Party candidate and coalition co-ordinator from Saskatchewan, called the oilsands projects a "wasteful" process that suffered from a lack of initial planning.
Shasko did, however, recognize that it's a complex issue, especially when it comes to jobs and the local economy.
And, she said, the oilsands projects have given youth an example to learn from.
"We don't have to make the same mistakes the older generations made," she said. "We have a chance to take this world back for us and for the next generations -- to really figure out how to live on this earth as if we want to stay."
