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by David Suzuki
"Climate change has stuck its head above the parapet. It’s not an
issue politicians can hide from much longer,” climate expert
Dr David Viner told New Scientist magazine the day before the release
of Canada’s federal budget.
Well, someone clearly forgot to tell Prime Minister Paul Martin. Or
maybe he’s just hoping to hide out until after the election,
because there was certainly nothing in the budget that promises to
take Canada out of the environmental dark ages.
Yes, Canada adopted the Kyoto Protocol a couple years back, but we
have done virtually nothing since. There is no plan to achieve our
goals. There is no leadership. In spite of the widely held belief
that we are good environmental stewards, Canada is actually one of
the least efficient, most polluting countries in the developed world.
Our rankings compared to the other member nations of the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development read like a shopping list
of failure. Air pollution? Second worst. Water consumption? Ditto.
Energy efficiency? Again, 28 out of 29.
At some point the federal government is going to have to wake up to
the fact that our economy is fully one-third less efficient than that
of the US. Every free-market pundit in the country should be up in
arms about that number. How can a country possibly compete when it
is so wasteful? Wasting water and energy is just plain stupid. It’s
bad for business and bad for the environment.
Unfortunately, Martin has given us a budget only a luddite would love.
Innovation? Not here. Vision? Sorry. What we got was more of the same.
More sweet deals for the fossil fuel industry, more stalling on improving
efficiency and little commitment to clean energy. In fact, the dirtiest
energy source, coal, has been given a reprieve in the budget under
the guise of being “clean coal.” Of course, there’s
no such thing. Coal is dirty, period. You can reduce a couple of the
pollutants coming out of the smoke stacks, but it’s still the
most inefficient and dirtiest of all fossil fuels. The heat-trapping
emissions alone from coal should have us keeping it in the ground
instead of burning it like there’s no tomorrow.
Speaking of emissions, Martin actually released his budget the day
after the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported
that levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere have hit a record
high. The US team started recording atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide,
the main greenhouse gas, in the 1950s. Back then, levels were around
315 parts per million. Today, they are at 376 ppm in the air and rising.
If we continue to burn fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas at present
quantities, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmophere is expected
to more than double by the turn of the century. This, of course, is
a recipe for disaster.
Scientists have told us again and again that the resulting temperature
increases would severely disrupt our global climate, leading to more
droughts and storms, rising sea levels and radically altered weather
patterns. We have set this course for ourselves. It’s not too
late to change, but we need to see some real leadership from government
and businesses to chart a new path.
We need to overhaul our economy to reward clean, non-polluting behaviours
and discourage actions that damage the air we breathe and the water
we drink. We need to encourage innovation that spurs new jobs. We
need to recognize that doing things differently can mean doing things
better. A clean economy actually means a healthier economy and a better
quality of
life for Canadians. Martin clearly had other concerns in this budget,
but he cannot hide from this issue much longer. When and how he addresses
it will be a true test of his leadership.
Take the Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org
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