At last, someone to blame
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Updated: August 05, 2009 2:55 PM
Military strategists recognize that fighting any war on two fronts simultaneously is particularly challenging.
We are finding that principle applies environmentally also.
On one hand, we have the complicated problem of climate change and global warming with, as yet, no general agreement about the cause.
In fact, there’s disagreement amongst scientists at the highest levels.
The evidence of melting polar sea ice and receding glaciers is irrefutable; the cause of the phenomenon is in dispute. Because it is a global problem it requires a global solution, once the true cause or causes have been identified.
Is it the consequence of the Industrial Revolution and all the developments which followed, or are these minor effects almost inconsequential when set against fluctuations in solar activity?
If mankind’s activities are the causal factors, it’s within our powers to respond. But if the cause is with the sun, then our efforts should be directed to preparing a response plan which is aimed to be effective worldwide.
On the other hand, there’s the immediate and more local problem of environmental degradation. There’s little doubt we are responsible and have the ability to reduce this, if we have the social and political will to take positive action and not just to talk about it.
‘Green’ has been accepted into our vocabulary even to the point of being used as a sales promotion slogan, which is paradoxical since too much selling and buying, consumerism, is one of the causal factors.
In this case, we, as individuals, can play a positive role and there’s no shortage of advice for any concerned individual.
Are we paying heed? Here, the evidence is mixed.
Many are aware that every action has an environmental impact, and so they do their best to minimize ill-effects, even though any one person’s contribution can be only small – recycling, re-using, reducing and refusing.
Too many others appear not to care, however. Driver-only commuting is justified as necessity, or the only practical option; garbage left after a big community event, like the fireworks displays, is commentary on some people’s carelessness; the quantity of waste put out for garbage pick-up is testimony to our profligacy.
Where are our leaders in all this?
Surrey has its Sustainability Charter to address local issues; Vancouver is, controversially, promoting bicycle use as an alternative to automobiles but these are small scale.
Higher authorities seem reluctant to engage in any constructive, global debate.
Metro Vancouver agonizes over garbage disposal, but without looking at measures to reduce the quantity that must be dealt with in the first place; provincially and federally there’s absence of anything to help lay people decide who is right in the global warming debate, not even an admission that there are two schools of thought, and government scientists are muzzled.
At the local environmental level, there’s more talk than action.
For whatever reason, and speculation is easy, but fruitless, no one in government seems willing to address the manifold concerns about the Alberta tar sands projects which clearly have significant environmental impacts. This perhaps the most egregious but certainly not the only instance.
If we bemoan the lack of strong leadership, who is at fault?
At the last election we rejected the one party which put environmental concern at the forefront of its platform, and so I am reminded of Shakespeare’s words: “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves.”
What are we prepared to do?
Dr. Roy Strang writes weekly on the environment for the Peace Arch News. rmstrang@shaw.ca
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