by David Suzuki
BC appears to be pinning its economic hopes on natural gas — much of it obtained by fracking. While the world should be turning from fossil fuels to cleaner energy and conservation, we’re poised to dig ourselves deeper into the climate-altering carbon hole.
by David Suzuki
In the early 1970s, a significant shift occurred in the relationship between North Americans and the world we live in. People started to recognize that nature’s bounty isn’t bottomless and that human activities often strain the Earth’s limits. Across Canada and the US, faced with society’s perpetual penchant for economic growth as an end unto itself, many people started to advocate for protecting nature lest it be irreparably broken by our actions.
by David Suzuki
Scientists often come up with new discoveries, technologies or theories. But sometimes they rediscover what our ancestors already knew. A couple of recent findings show we have a lot to learn from our forebears — and nature — about bugs.
by David Suzuki
My parents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and were profoundly affected by it. They taught us to work hard to earn a living, live within our means, save for tomorrow, share and not be greedy and help our neighbours because one day we might need their help. Those homilies and teachings seem quaint in today’s world of credit cards, hyper-consumption and massive debt.
by David Suzuki
Some people think a widespread shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources is not practical or even possible. You’ve probably heard the arguments: wind doesn’t always blow, sun doesn’t always shine, the technology’s not advanced enough, installations take up too much space, we need sources of baseload power that can only come from fossil fuels or nuclear power. And so we carry on, rushing to squeeze every last drop of oil and gas from the ground using increasingly difficult and destructive methods like fracking, deep-sea drilling and oil sands extraction, with seemingly little concern for what we’ll do after we’ve burned it all.
by David Suzuki
Is your office bad for your health and well-being? Unfortunately, a growing body of scientific evidence says yes.
The modern workday pose — fingers on keyboard, slight slouch, glassy eyes fixed on glowing screen, bathed in unnatural light — can drain vitality, happiness and creativity. Designed to maximize efficiency, this sterile setup actually reduces productivity and job satisfaction.
by David Suzuki
Opposition to windmills often centres on health effects, but what is it about wind power that causes people to feel ill? According to recent research, it may not be the infrasound from wind-energy installations but, oddly enough, the warnings from opponents.
by David Suzuki
Access to information is a basic foundation of democracy. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives us “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” We must protect these rights.
by David Suzuki
The federal government recently pulled out of an important global treaty. The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is aimed at fighting drought, a problem that affects almost 30 percent of Earth’s land surface and threatens the well-being of more than a billion people worldwide, including in our Prairie provinces.
by David Suzuki
Energy is on everyone’s minds these days. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is determined to make Canada an energy superpower, fuelled mostly by Alberta’s tar sands.
Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Alison Redford, elected to lead a province with a strong economy, now finds energy price fluctuations are reducing provincial revenues. Saskatchewan is booming from oil, gas and uranium revenues, and BC Premier Christy Clark plans to vastly expand exploitation of liquefied natural gas, which requires huge amounts of energy and involves the highly contentious practice of fracking.
While Quebec Premier Pauline Marois maintains a moratorium on fracking, New Brunswick Premier David Alward claims it’s an energy opportunity for his province. Former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s progressive Green Energy Act is under serious attack, and Prime Minister Harper eagerly embraces exploration for oil as Arctic sea ice and tundra melt from the warming climate.
Although the federal government demonizes environmentalists as “radicals” bent on derailing exploitation plans for the tar sands and other natural resources, opposition is rising against pipelines to transport Alberta’s diluted bitumen to the BC coast via Enbridge’s Northern Gateway or to Texas refineries via the Keystone XL. Much of the oil would be exported to countries like China, where the extreme negative effects of fossil fuel pollution are increasing daily.
Politicians who want to make significant change must focus primarily on re-election if they are to see their agendas come to fruition. That means they must respond to immediate economic demands while leaving longer-term problems like climate change and water issues on the back burner. Surely the enduring consequences of today’s actions or inactions must be a priority. We’ll be living with the ramifications of the current crop of politicians’ decisions and actions long after they’ve been relegated to history.
Crisis is a powerful motivator, as we saw during the economic crash of 2008. In a matter of weeks, President George W Bush and his successor, Barack Obama, committed hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and automobile companies – without imposing any conditions that might get them to change their ways. I was astounded at the speed and scale of these actions, compared to the ineffectual snail’s pace on ecological issues that threaten the survival of our species and our way of life and society.
The science has been in for more than two decades: Human use of fossil fuels creating unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere, leading to climate and weather effects that will be chaotic and devastating. Continued increases in emissions will only exacerbate what is already an out-of-control atmospheric transformation of the biosphere – our only home.
We claim brainpower makes us superior to the rest of life on this planet. But what use is intelligence if we don’t use it to respond to threats and opportunities? After all, foresight was a great human attribute that brought us to a position of dominance on the planet. We used our knowledge and experiences to look ahead and recognize potential dangers and favourable circumstances so we could take some control over our destiny by acting to avoid hazards and exploit possibilities.
This is Canada’s moment. We are confronting a crisis with the economy and energy. No economy can grow forever; it is simply impossible on a finite planet. Shouldn’t we ask what an economy is for? How much is enough? What are the limits? How do we build a sustainable economy? We have learned from painful experience in single-resource communities that relying primarily on one major component of the economy — logging, fishing, mining — makes for dangerous boom-and-bust cycles.
Nations that export fossil fuel too often become overreliant on that sector. That destabilizes the economy (as we’re seeing in Alberta), distorts priorities (leading to the so-called “Dutch disease” where other parts of the economy are neglected or ignored) and undermines democracy by holding government hostage (as we saw in the enormous lobbying power of industry in the last US presidential election).
The future of energy in Canada will determine the fate of our society. It must be widely discussed, nationally as well as provincially, beyond the boundaries of politics and economics. This is about the type of country we will leave to our children and grandchildren.
Reference
Alberta’s Redford and oil prices
BC’s Christy Clark and LNG
Fracking
Ontario Green Energy Act
Oil and Arctic sea ice
Radical extremists
China pollution
No economy can grow forever
Dutch disease
Industry lobby and US election
