Category Archives: climate crisis

“Why would we do this?”

climate crisis, ecology, liberal party

There’s a feature story in today’s Globe and Mail about Dr. Gordon McBean, one of Canada’s top climatologists. Dr. McBean briefed the federal Liberal cabinet on climate change in 2002. He told them then — five years ago — that the Kyoto targets were only a first step, and that much deeper reductions in carbon emissions were needed. He also explained that climate change could mean “surging sea levels, more frequent violent storms, severe heat waves and droughts,” but added that it would be decades before the effects of any action would be noticeable.

At least one Minister was appalled. “And there will be nothing for us between now and the next election?” the minister asked. “Why would we do this?”

“You do it for your grandchildren,” Dr. McBean replied. (Fortunately for the Minister, and unfortunately for us, Dr. McBean isn’t naming names.)

That story is yet another illustration of why Canadians should be very cautious when considering the born-again policy positions of political parties claiming to have seen the light. In most cases, I suspect, all they’ve really seen are polling numbers.

Also in today’s Globe, Preston Manning argues that politicians must not do to the environment what they did to health care: produce nothing but “sterile, destructive, polarized debate,” that succeeds only in convincing the public that “their No. 1 public-policy concern cannot be resolved by political processes and institutions, and that politics is part of the health-care problem, not part of the solution.” (The fact that Preston Manning is now sounding reasonable is a good demonstration of, 1) how far off-side Stephen Harper is, and 2) how much nicer, smarter, and productive politicians are once they’ve gone through parliamentary detox.)

Keeping that in mind, I suggest there are three things people should ask themselves when assessing which party has the best environmental approach:

  1. Do they have staying power? Do you believe the party is actually committed to addressing the planetary crisis, or will their resolve melt if our next winter happens to be a cold one?
  2. Do they have the best solutions? This is different than asking if they appear to care the most, or if they have the best TV commercials. The benefit of living in a country that’s fallen so far behind on environmental leadership is that there are lots of proven solutions that can be borrowed from other jurisdictions.
  3. Do they understand how different issues are interrelated? Not just the way that the environment is linked to health and economy (though that’s important), but also how climate change relates to resource depletion, toxicity, ocean health, agribusiness, peak oil, etc. Be very skeptical of any party with an environmental platform that claims to be able to solve the climate crisis without addressing these other issues.

Today is Parliament’s first day back. Here’s to hoping they achieve at least the bare minimum.

Everything New is Old

climate crisis, conservative party, energy

As you’ve likely gathered, I’ve been away for a week. Out of the country, actually. This morning, the radio kindly informed me that, while I was gone, the Conservative party made a series of announcements and declared themselves “green.” (Clever of them to wait until I wasn’t looking to spring this stuff. Not sure how they got their hands on my travel plans, but I’ll find out.)

“Good,” I thought. Then, I looked into the details. “#$@%,” I thought.

Turns out, there were two main announcements. The first announcement came on Wednesday, with a $230-million investment in “clean energy” research. (Those of you keeping score at home will note that that amounts to 16% of the $1.4-billion of our tax dollars that go to the oil and gas industry which, by the way, really doesn’t need it.) This sounds like a great idea at first, until you realize that the Conservatives have defined “clean” as “coal and oil.” I’m not going to dignify that with any further analysis.

The second announcement regarded energy rebates for home retrofits. Again, a good idea that has been masterfully neutered. With the Conservative plan, all you have to do is pay for an energy audit ($200-$300), then pay for the renovations to your home (say, $1000 and upwards), then apply and wait for your rebate while you hold off the credit card company. Somehow, I don’t predict long line ups for this one. Better than nothing, but not much help to people who don’t have thousands of dollars lying around, or who don’t own their homes.

The really amazing thing about these two plans is that one year ago when “Canada’s Newest Government Ever!” took power, better versions of both these ideas already existed, and were then promptly eliminated. In fact, Stephen Harper’s government has frozen or killed more than a dozen climate-change programs since they took office, including the EnerGuide program.

Of course, those programs were also not enough, and saw Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rise by 24% through to 2004, and more since then. If these ideas are “green,” it’s because they’re really old and stuff has started growing on them. It’s past time for more than positioning, Harper.

There’s Something Happening Here

climate crisis, ecology, toronto

In 1988, over 300 scientists and policy-makers from 46 different countries and organizations came together to discuss the crisis of climate change in Toronto. It was called “The Toronto Conference,” and their final statement began with the following sentence.

Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment, whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war.

This week, thousands of birds fell from the sky in Australia, dead. As of now, we don’t yet know why.

In Green politics, there’s something called the precautionary principal. Basically, it states that if there’s a chance that a series of actions could, for example, shut down our life support systems, we should maybe not take those actions until we’re sure they’re safe (as opposed to conducting business as usual until there’s absolute proof that business as usual is destructive). In other words, even if things ain’t exactly clear, it’s still worth stopping, listening, and looking around.

Bird deaths can’t help but remind me of the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. Problem is, unlike miners, we don’t have anywhere to run to once we notice the canary has stopped breathing.

For what it’s worth.

Ministering to the Environment

climate crisis, conservative party, ecology, green party

The Toronto Star reports that John Baird is your new federal minister of the environment. You might think this decision would be of huge importance to me, but I’m finding it hard to react. I want to be optimistic, but I don’t see how this will change anything. I hope I’m proven wrong.

For one, Rona Ambrose never had a chance. Initially, she wasn’t even supposed to be good at her job. The PMO didn’t consider it a priority to maintain our life support systems. Then, when it became clear to him that environment = votes, Harper took over the file and stopped letting Ambrose speak. My first hope for Baird is that he’ll be allowed to do his job.

Defining the nature of his job is the next big challenge. The Conservative government is yet to acknowledge the obvious fact that addressing the climate crisis is priority number one, but they’ll probably have to. Then, they, like the rest of us, will have graduated from if to how. That’s the tricky bit, because as the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment explained, the climate crisis did not develop in isolation from other problems, nor can it be solved in isolation.

For government, that means two things. First, it means that climate change cannot be addressed unless we also address other environmental problems, including toxicity, over-fishing, air pollution, access to water, etc. Second, it means that much of what has to be done falls under the jurisdiction of other departments, including the ministries of…well, I was about to list them, but I would have had to list almost every single one. (Not to mention the over-arching challenges of addressing cancerous economic growth and destructive cultural assumptions.)

So that’s why I don’t think this shuffle will matter much one way or the other. There’s a joke that the Green Party wouldn’t even have a minister of the environment if we were in government, since we’d take our species’ survival — as opposed to our political survival — into account when making all decisions. (I know, we’re radicals.) And besides, to quote Roy MacGregor, this isn’t about the minister of the environment. “This is about Canada, and the rest of the world, ministering to the environment.”