Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1771136634 ISBN 13: 9781771136631

Publisher: Between the Lines, 2025

Synopsis

What am I doing to address the climate crisis? How far will I go to defend the earth? What price am I willing to pay for climate justice?



Since 2014, hundreds of people have been arrested while engaging in non-violent civil disobedience to protest the "TMX" Trans Mountain pipeline project. Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain includes twenty-five stories of people who put themselves on the line for climate justice. While some of those arrested were longtime activists, others felt compelled to act for the first time in their lives. Editors Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, and Tim Bray showcase the profiles of Indigenous leaders, academics, faith leaders, political leaders, engineers, artists and writers, scientists, physicians, and ordinary folk from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Their reflections on the protests and their arrests explore our moral duty to future generations, government''s collusion with corporate power, the violation of Indigenous Law, and unsustainable worldviews. Climate activists in protest movements such as the one against the TMX pipeline are critical in the existential fight for a sustainable future and habitable planet. They show us that we can all take a stand.

About this title

About the Authors

Rosemary Cornell has been an activist for Nature conservation and regeneration since childhood as she watched in consternation and grief as the forest surrounding her home was converted into a housing subdivision. Speaking the uncomfortable truth is a value engrained into her by the religious community within which she was raised. She was a professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain for thirty-three years, and for eight years collaborated in research with co-editor Adrienne Drobnies. She lives in a wonderful neighbourhood on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh, and has two inspiring adult children, whose future is her prime concern.

Adrienne Drobnies is a PhD chemist and poet living in Vancouver, BC, on the territories of the Coast Salish people. She was a researcher at Simon Fraser University, and then project manager at the BC Genome Sciences Centre until 2013. In 2019, she published her first book of poetry, Salt and Ashes (Signature Editions), which won the Fred Kerner Award from the Canadian Authors Association. Her poem "Randonn" won the Gwendolyn MacEwen Award and was shortlisted for the CBC Literary Prize. She is grateful to breathe the air, walk along the ocean, and wander through the forests of the lands where she resides, and seeks in whatever ways she can to sustain that abundance for future generations.

Tim Bray is a software engineer, writer, and environmentalist in Vancouver, BC, on the territories of the Coast Salish peoples. He is the founder of two companies, a major contributor to Internet Standards, and the author of a popular blog at tbray.org. In March 2018 he was arrested while protesting the TMX pipeline, and in May 2020 he made headlines by resigning from his position as VP/Distinguished Engineer at Amazon's cloud computing division in protest at the treatment of warehouse workers and whistleblowers.

Edition details

• Publisher: Between the Lines
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1771136634
• ISBN 13: 9781771136631
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Cornell Rosemary, Drobnies Adrienne, Bray Tim