My generation caused the problem - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

Canadians can be grateful as we simply look on from a distance as the U.S. faces, for the third straight U.S. presidential election, the possibility that Donald Trump could be elected and completely change the future of one of the world’s long-standing democracies.

 

Yet, at the same time, polls show a majority of Canadians are tired of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and are ready to throw him out as soon as they have a chance.

 

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre last week challenged the NDP to drop its support for the minority Liberal government and bring on an election this fall. Why the NDP would want that, given that Poilievre wants to kill the carbon tax, is a touch bewildering. NDP supporters are more worried about the climate than even the Liberals.

 

Have Canadians really thought about the effect of climate change or are they just so ready to get rid of the Trudeau government that they’re willing to sentence their children and grandchildren to suffering from what climate change can bring? 

 

The 10 top hottest years ever recorded have all been since 2000, with records being beaten year after year. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850.”

 

Once again this summer, western Canada has been pummeled by wildfires, with the people of Jasper National Park in Alberta and other towns and villages being driven from their homes. Though the effect of smoke hasn’t been as bad in Ontario as last year, people in Western Canada, especially in Alberta, have had to suffer breathing air full of smoke from forest fires.

 

This is the same Alberta, of course, that denies the danger of climate change. They have economic reason on their side in that case, since they ship oil and natural gas abroad that’s burned to create some of the changes to our climate. We have burned more and more and more petroleum each year for 100 years.

 

Generally, governments with the title “Conservative” are not concerned about conserving the environment that makes it possible for us to live, but conserving the benefits for large companies that benefit - and support Conservative politicians who support them.
   

Poilievre has voted against the environment and climate nearly 400 times during his 20-year career as a Member of Parliament. 

 

Last week, BC United Leader Kevin  Falcon directed supporters to unite behind John Rustad, the Conservative Leader whom he had ejected from BC United’s caucus two years earlier over social media posts questioning the link between carbon dioxide and climate change.

 

Here in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford eliminated the carbon tax at the gas pumps while attempting to free up land from the Greenbelt to allow more urban housing on valuable farm land around Toronto before opposition halted the plan, costing developers (and Progressive Conservative Party supporters) hundreds of millions they had spent acquiring land.

 

Of course, we Canadians don’t get to vote for anti-climate change measures in countries around the world, from the U.S. to China to Europe, but we live with the consequences. Forest fires get worse because of imported climate change. Northern tundra which used to stay frozen year-round now thaws in summer. The Northwest Passage is often free of ice in summer as icebergs melt away.

 

I’m an old man so I’ll die before my children and grandchildren face the worst problems of climate change. And my generation has contributed more than any other to the problem. We’ve increased the population, both in Canada and around the world, to be the largest ever. Our cities have expanded to accommodate that growth with more car travel to get to work and much larger houses than they built at the time I was born. As we’ve aged, my generation has spurred more jet travel because we have lived longer and have the money to travel. (Let’s remember that most of our predecessors came to Canada on sailing ships and never returned to Europe.)

 

The world will change, either by choice or necessity. Already people are having fewer children as both men and women work. But on the other hand, voting for governments that deny there is a problem is going to slow dealing with the crisis and make it worse. We must face reality. We must support governments at the local, provincial or federal levels that deal in reality. Wishing won’t make things better.

 

Nothing says that we must return to the deprivations of the past to solve the problem. Things like generating electricity from wind and solar power and battery-powered cars are improvements. Dedicating ourselves to halting burning carbon-based fuels will help. Inventive minds will find other solutions - as long as we don’t distract them by denying the problem.