We’re deep in cultural denial
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Updated: October 08, 2009 6:19 PM
Dear editor,
Wow, those were quite the full-page ads posted by the Stop the Drive-Thru Ban movement.
Kinda makes you wonder who is bankrolling them? Of course, it wouldn’t be the fast food chains corporate head offices who apparently are sweating in their socks because four small town councillors from Duckburg-by-the-Sea, B.C. are giving them a lot of grief?
But this whole silly and pathetic affair certainly does throw a larger spotlight on one major case of cultural denial we seem to be suffering from here in North America.
If we aren’t even willing to turn off the ignition and get out of the car to buy a coffee and doughnut, what’s the point of even attempting to clean up our act and, with it, our planet’s atmosphere?
If you want to witness another disturbing example of how firmly locked into denial we all are in regard to the automobile and its contribution to climate change, stand outside Vanier Secondary at the start or finish of the school day.
Talk about traffic congestion! The cars are all backed up the half-kilometre driveway from the school out to Headquarters Road as Mom arrives to pick up little Buster or Sally. God forbid the poor little sods might have to walk or ride their bike to school!
As it happened, I attended Victoria’s prestigious Oak Bay High in the early 1960s whose student body was about the same as today’s Vanier. Back in those days, there might have been five to 10 students who actually drove to school with only a handful dropped off by parents.
And if I even hinted that I might want a ride the two miles to school, dad —Chief Petty Officer James, Gunnery Instructor, would have barked: “Whatsa matter, you’ve got two legs! Use ‘em!
So for sometime now I have been belatedly waiting to hear of any politician — or member of our national environmental community even — who has the courage to even mention the R word: Rationing.
As it stands, we are almost at the tipping point where we need to apply drastic measures in order to fight the catastrophic climate change which is already upon the horizon.
Is rationing that frightening or will it have other benefits besides?
Well, it did during the Second World War according to writer Jean Paul Sartre who was in Paris during the German occupation where strict rationing was imposed and the population had only their two feet to get around with.
Sartre fondly recalled that he couldn’t think of a time when the French women looked more beautiful.... Rick James,
Sandwick
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