Happy Earth Day

It's that day again.   On the news this morning I just heard Prime Minister Junior make what is likely to become one of his many lame-ass pronouncements during his administration.  Pierre's little boy said in very clear terms that we are not going to be going off fossil fuels any time soon because that would wreck the economy and kill jobs.  Am I the only one seeing Stephen Harper gradually emerge like a weltering incubus from out of his young pretty visage?

I was having a conversation yesterday with a woman sharing tables on a Starbuck's patio with one of my clients and me.  The wind was strong and I commented that a new weather system was blowing in.  She expressed concern about climate change and global warming.  Yes, the weather has been till recently spectacularly lovely and summery but we are still in April and the prospects and ramifications of climate change are quite frightening.  To indicate the absolute slowness or absolute indifference of average people I gestured to the dense motor traffic on Cambie Street.  She concurred that most people are too lazy, selfish and indifferent to want to give up their comforts and conveniences even if the alternative is going to be a vastly reduced shelf life for our species and life on this planet.  Junior's insistence that jobs and the economy are going to take precedence over the planet simply brings this to sad and tragic emphasis.

I am still optimistic, unlike the lady on the patio.  I think we will eventually get it right.  I also believe that our asses are going to get kicked good and hard.  We may have to prepare to wake up to a decidedly different planet and a vastly altered humanity.  We might have to reckon with a hugely reduced global population and huge wars and conflicts and migrations of millions because of the impact of climate change.  We might have to accept that vast tracts of formerly arable and liveable land could be rendered uninhabitable or under water.  We might have to accept the mass loss of cultural heritage and memory following the coming dark age.  And the loss of technology.

We just might find ourselves fighting World War 4 with sticks, clubs and stones.  Or, more of us could give up our cars (I have never owned one), give up meat (I have been a vegetarian for more than twenty years) and do everything in our power to encourage others that they go and do likewise.

Loss of jobs and economy as a threat has always been the preferred red herring of the right.  Please, let's have the good sense to have done with this nonsense and let's get on with saving the planet and keeping it green and liveable for future generations.