About 100 people gathered for an NDP conference on Saturday to talk about climate change, support for the Yukon’s seniors and food security among other issues certain to figure prominently in the territorial election.

U.S. environmentalist Bill McKibben and Susan Eng, a seniors’ advocate from Toronto, were guest speakers at the Change 2016 event, which took place at the Yukon Transportation Museum. (See story on Eng in Friday’s Star.)

A recurring theme was a move away from fossil fuel development and toward renewable energy, suggesting this issue is one New Democrats hope to own in the election.

McKibben is an author and the founder of 350.org, a website that organizes demonstrations against climate change around the world. He had some harrowing words for the crowd about the dangers of rising global temperatures.

“The only comparable thing is the last time an asteroid hit the planet, except this time the asteroid is us,” he said.

McKibben cited rising rates of wildfires in northern zones like Alaska and Siberia, decreasing moose populations in the United States, and drought in the Philippines as just a few examples of how climate change is affecting the world right now.

“We see the results of (warming temperatures) in just daily devastation around the planet. Every day in some place on the planet, this new climatic regime is taking lives and wrecking communities,” said McKibben.

The former New Yorker staff writer called entertaining new fossil fuel developments “incredibly ironic” given the global trend toward cleaner energy.

Indeed, Canada committed to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy at the United Nations climate change conference in Paris last November.

McKibben suggested that launching hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” projects to tap shale gas reserves buried deep below the Yukon’s surface is “the equivalent of deciding in 1916 what the Yukon needed was to build a huge horse and buggy factory.

“The world is going in a different direction now,” he said.

The author had a seemingly endless supply of frightening data for the audience, which was made up primarily of loyal NDP supporters.

“2014 was the warmest year ever measured on the planet. 2015 smashed that record by a lot, and 2016 is smashing that record by even more,” said McKibben.

“Last year, the planet was a full tenth of a degree warmer than it’s ever been measured before. If you think about the size of the Earth and how much energy it would take to raise the temperature of something that large by a tenth of a degree in a 12-month period, you begin to sense some of the galloping momentum that we’re now dealing with.”

But McKibben wasn’t without hope.

He said the Yukon is well-positioned to lead the country in its transition to a green energy economy because its small population will allow the territory to make such a shift as a community and with relative ease.

What it takes, he said, is immediate action.

“We need things to happen fast, so that’s why it’s good you guys are having an election.”

Premier Darrell Pasloski must call it by October at the latest.

Neil Hartling, former chair of the Yukon Tourism Industry Association, wind energy consultant J.P. Pinard, Takhini Hot Springs president Garry Umbrich, local farmer Kate Mechan and others also spoke at the conference.

Mechan, who does community outreach for the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coallition, shares a two-acre farm with her partner, Bart Bounds, on the Takhini River Road.

The couple grows 20 varieties of greens and more than 60 kinds of root vegetables and herbs at their off-grid farm, she said.

They also raise turkeys, chickens and rabbits, and they just submitted forms for organic certification.

Mechan spoke about supporting the local food economy and about a “good food bucks program,” which can help low-income residents access healthy, locally-sourced food.

McKibben put words to the overall tone of Change 2016:

“When people fight, they often win. It makes me wish people fought more often.”