Category Archives: toronto

We Will Not Save The Environment Until…

climate crisis, ecology, peace, toronto, , , , , ,

With all the focus on the politics and math of mitigating climate change (which is getting exceptionally urgent, by the way), it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Last night Spacing Magazine launched their 10th issue, the “green issue.” Inside the front cover is the following, by Pier Giorgio DiCicco, Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto, edited from a speech at the Walk21 conference two months ago. It is, IMHO, profound.

After the many seductions, logical and visionary, have been played—I shall make a plea for the salvific aspect of the act of walking. Yes, salvific. Not just to save the environment, but to save ourselves, and not just by regarding the environment. We will not save the environment until we have found a reason for living together. Until we discover civic care in each other, until we restore the city to its definition as a place of unexpected intimacies, not just as a place of amenities, convenience, business, and entertainment, we will not have sustainability. For sustainability is about replacing an ethic of entitlement with an ethic of sufficiency. And sufficiency is what we find in each other. In an era that glorifies independence and even inter-dependence we are shy of admitting the awful truth: that is, we are dependent on each other, not by connectedness, but because we are one body breathing the same air. It is not cars that are the enemy of the pedestrian. The enemy is the absence of civic communion, the lack of empathic citizenship, our inability to see cohabitation as that place where we enjoy ourselves, by enjoying others. All human traffic is under siege, because it is becoming increasingly purposed, guarded, and negotiated. The body is not just a means of locomotion. It is our chief means of restoring a city to its raison d’être, its purpose. And that purpose is civil encounter.

But civic trust has been corroded. Our cities are becoming disinhabited, even when the streets are safe and landscaped; gentrified neighbourhoods are no more interactive than the brownfields and cloverleafs they replaced. The problem is not, fundamentally, to get people to slow down, or to move without being toxic to their environment. The problem is to make people aware that anonymity is as toxic to the ecology of heart as hydrocarbons are toxic to the atmosphere. The problem is how to restore intimacy, curiosity, trust, and play into the happenstance encounter of citizens, in an era when the happenstance and the unpredictable are a threat.

When all the cars will have been taxed or tolled on their way to the cities, when bike paths and parks will have reconfigured our neighbourhoods, when safe and cleaner transportation has cut emissions, a fundamental question will remain. Is the safe city, the sanitized city, the sustainable city, the same as the livable city? If all we want is clean and well-designed cities, it will likely come to pass. But in the long run, to save the environment means that we will want to save the environment not just for ourselves, but for each other. And to reverence each other means that we will have to discover each other.

I wonder if any of the delegates and observers to Bali channeled Dr. Eleanor Arroway on arrival, saying “they should have sent a poet.”

Bali Rally

climate crisis, conservative party, toronto, , ,

Crossposted from Torontoist.

Today is the first day of the Bali United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will continue until December 14th. The purpose of the conference, which is being attended by over 20,000 delegates and observers from 180 countries, is to set out the framework of negotiations for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol when it ends in 2012. There are several events taking place this week in Toronto to mark the occasion. The first is a concert with the Foggy Hometown Boys and Autorickshaw, plus a guest speaker (some guy named Chris Tindal, who promises not to talk for more than 10 minutes) taking place this Wednesday December 5th at 9 p.m. at Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas West, west of Dufferin). Tickets are $15, $10 for students. The second is a rally on Saturday December 8th at noon in Dundas Square. Both are well worth attending.

The need for success in Bali is great. The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere has reached levels we previously thought would take much longer to achieve, and the effects of climate change are accelerating more rapidly than even some of our most pessimistic projections. And yet, it’s not too late for us to seize the opportunity that crises always present. We can still make the kinds of changes that are needed to ensure our climate and economic security, and to safeguard and even improve our quality of life. For Canada, the choice is between restoring our reputation as an international leader while simultaneously positioning ourselves to take advantage of the new economy, or sabotaging international negotiations and playing a key role in derailing the efforts of the other 179 countries present. The latter would not only be a national embarrassment, it would be an immoral failure on a grand scale.

Early indications are not particularly positive. Last month, our prime minister—acting practically single-handedly—was able to cripple negotiations at a Commonwealth summit so effectively that the other 52 countries gave up trying to agree to anything at all. That event marked a significant shift; no longer was Stephen Harper merely blocking progress in his own country, he was now blocking progress internationally as well.

Shifting Language

That can’t be allowed to happen in Bali. What will happen, however, is less clear. When in opposition, this prime minister referred to Kyoto as a “socialist scheme.” As recently as January of this year he used the skeptical phrase “so-called global warming.” Then, realizing that public demand for action was not going away, the Conservatives began experimenting with new language. Environment Minister John Baird started calling for “intensity-based targets,” a scheme devised by the Bush White House that would give the illusion of reductions while allowing overall emissions to rise. Then, as recently as September, the government traveled to an APEC summit and argued for what they called “aspirational targets,” which are a step below “voluntary targets.”

Times change, however. Now, with the ouster of anti-Kyoto Australian prime minister John Howard a little over a week ago, and with growing pressure at home, Baird and Harper are suddenly calling for “binding, absolute targets” to be imposed. That sounds positive, but many remain skeptical that their new language represents a legitimate conversion, especially considering that, as far as we can tell, the prime minister is yet to receive a scientific briefing on the climate crisis.

Regardless, the key trick to the Conservatives’ demand for “binding, absolute targets” is that they be imposed on all countries or none. They argue that, since this is a global problem, all countries need to reduce emissions at the same time. As this CP story put it, “depending on your perspective, the Conservative government is either going into global climate-change talks this week as a deal-buster with unrealistic demands or a strategic bridge-builder bent on bringing various factions together.”

Skewed Perspective

Perspective certainly has a lot to do with it. Canadians will often complain that we shouldn’t reduce emissions if other countries (China and India, for example) won’t do so as well. After all, what’s the point if they’re just going to move in and fill the gap? From a developing nation’s standpoint, however, this is a highly objectionable position. For the past century we’ve not only been the greatest contributers to the problem of climate change, we’ve also been the greatest beneficences of economic growth fueled by the fossil fuel era. And now that the developing world is just starting to catch up, we’re saying to them, “sorry, too bad, you can’t have what we had. You’re going to have to do just as much as us, even though we made most of the mess, and you’re starting with less.”

That’s a moral argument, but there are pragmatic ones too. The fact is that the wealthy countries are the ones who can afford to develop the new technologies and techniques that will be required to reduce our emissions by the 80% our scientists tell us is necessary. Asking the world’s poorest countries (India pointed out this week that their emissions per capita are still among the world’s lowest) to shoulder the burden while we complain about the “cost” of action is a recipe for failure, not to mention insulting.

Add to this the fact that just as the poor black population of New Orleans suffered the most from Katrina, so too will the world’s poor endure the brunt of climate change. A CBC radio news report this morning drew attention to the irony of holding this conference in Indonesia, a country made up of thousands of islands that will disappear as world ocean levels rise.

While Harper’s knowledge of climate science may be lacking, his mastery of political strategy is well known. From a tactical perspective, he understands how these negotiations are likely to play out depending on his actions. That’s why it’s hard not to believe that his “all or nothing” demands are designed to ensure the negotiations in Bali fail to come up with the kinds of commitments needed. He’s likely to team up with a lame-duck American president to ensure that the world commits to as little action as possible. Its the difference between being an international leader or an international pariah.

Model for Success

The good news is that we have a model for success. When the world confronted the challenge presented by acid rain, an international protocol was formed that saw the wealthy nations take the lead, with developing nations to follow. It worked, and led to both environmental and economic benefits. That’s what the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (of which Kyoto is a part) was designed to do. Contrary to the rhetoric coming out of Ottawa, countries like China and India actually are a part of the agreement. While they were exempt from reductions in the first round due to their status as developing nations (as well as economic predictions that did not foresee the level of growth those countries now boast), everyone has always understood that binding emission reductions will eventually be required for all countries.

Speaking of perspective, the Kyoto plan is working almost everywhere but Canada, where politicians make defeatist proclamations that become self-fulfilling. For example, the European Union has reduced emissions by nearly 5% below 1990 levels (Canada’s target was 6%), and Germany has reduced theirs by an impressive 17%, all while creating new “green-collar” jobs. Our emissions, on the other hand, have risen by 27% while we experience an emerging economic crisis. When Harper calls Kyoto a “mistake,” therefore, he’s doing so in opposition to the facts. If we want a positive international reputation and a competitive economy (not to mention a livable world), we must continue to work with the established framework (while allowing for corrections and adjustments—after all, no agreement is perfect).

And if we want our government to do that, then we’d best show up in numbers to the rally this Saturday in Dundas Square (and elsewhere across the country). If we don’t, then our political leaders will get the idea that we don’t care. And if we don’t, then why should they?

Uranium Mining: No Can Du

energy, events, toronto, , , , , ,

Crossposted from Torontoist.com 

For the last 50 days, Donna Dillman has been on a hunger strike to protest uranium mining in eastern Ontario. Tomorrow (Tuesday), she brings that fight to the steps of Queen’s Park, and she’d like you to join her.

Donna, a grandmother, is concerned about strong scientific evidence that particles released into the air and water during uranium mining and processing contribute to increased rates of cancer and organ damage, especially in children. The CBC recently reported that 4 out of 9 people screened had radioactive chemicals in their bones after living near a uranium processing facility.

On the other side of the argument is the very well-funded nuclear lobby, which spends immense amounts of money trying to convince citizens and government that nuclear is “safe, clean, and affordable,” an ironic set of keywords that seem to take nuclear’s biggest faults (it’s highly risky, produces extremely dangerous waste that lasts for a million years, and costs far more than any other kind of power generation) and sell them as strengths.

Complicating the scenario are recent moves to require exporting countries of uranium (a very small club of which Canada is a member) to take back radioactive nuclear waste once the fuel is spent. So not only would the health of Canadians be compromised during the initial mining process, we’d also be stuck living with the world’s supply of what is possibly the most dangerous substance we’ve ever created for a much longer timeline than we can possibly plan for.

Donna begins her march at 11:00 a.m. this Tuesday at the corner of Orde St. (one block south of College) and University Ave. From there her and her supporters will walk to the main legislative building at Queen’s Park to ask the Premier to hold an open public inquiry into the dangers and benefits of uranium. For more information on her hunger strike, visit the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium or follow Donna’s blog.

Running To Win

climate crisis, green party, toronto,

Last weekend the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of over 2500 scientific experts from 130 different countries that’s been working since 1988, released their fourth and final report [pdf] on the urgent crisis that threatens our economy, our quality of life, and many lives. For some reason it was put out with the trash and didn’t receive the attention it deserves. Regardless, the report warns us of two main realities we need to take to heart: climate change is accelerating even more quickly than what we previously thought to be the worst-case scenario, and we only have four years to take dramatic corrective action before it will be too late to avoid a frighteningly destabilized world. And yet, some claim their projections are still “too rosy.”

The previous week a different group, the International Energy Agency, released their own report with remarkably similar conclusions.

A year or two ago we ended the debate on the existence of climate change. More recently we’ve all but ended the debate on whether or not our actions are the key contributor to that change. We need to now stop debating any question of how much action is needed, and how soon it must happen. The answer is clear: we need to fundamentally re-imagine how we’ve structured our society, and we need to do it now.

All three of the other national parties promise to take action on the environment, and none are completely without any good ideas. But none of them propose doing what the science now tells us is necessary, and some of their proposed actions could even do more harm than good.

There is no more time for business as usual. There is no more time for the same ideas, coming from the same political parties. In a way more real than these clichéd political slogans could ever express, we need new ideas. We need genuine change.

In less than two months Toronto Centre will be in a by-election, and voters will be given a special opportunity to send a strong message to Ottawa, without the risk and strategic calculations that come into play during a general election. It’s a fantastic opportunity to make history and change the political climate in Canada.

Call me arrogant or call me vain, but I’m not running to be a protest vote or a sideshow. I’m running to win. We’ve got to put these plans into action. To ask, “if not us then who? if not now, then when?” is to come up with no other satisfactory answer.

I hope you’ll join me.