Here in the Creston Valley, and in most parts of the world for that matter, people have very little experience of the problem I’m about to discuss. I’m not sure whether that is a good thing.
Certainly, we’re fortunate. On the other hand, I fear that our good luck makes us more complacent than we should be for our long-term good and for the fate of our world.
The problem, you will have guessed, is global warming. The polar bears in our Arctic are already suffering because of it. The rest of us will share their fate unless we do something — indeed, a lot — about it pretty soon.
Granted, it’s not a problem that we can solve as individuals or little valleys or even countries as large in area as Canada. It’s going to take decisive, far-reaching action by at least a great majority of the world’s nations — especially those that are most responsible for causing the problem in the first place.
Canada is one of those nations. Yet our petroleum industry and our federal government seemingly find it impossible to understand that what was once a vital contributor to our economic well-being, and that of much of the world, has now become a threat to our survival as human beings.
I don’t think I’m being unjustifiably alarmist. Pollution arising from the consumption of petroleum products is not the only cause of global warming and ours is not the only culpable oil producing and consuming country.
But it is a major factor and we must take responsibility for what we do and, to the best of our ability, we should provide leadership and set an example for others.
Yes, the oil industry has been good for Canada. The industry has been especially good to Albertans. It has made a lot of them and a lot of its owners elsewhere very rich. It has the capacity to go on doing so for several decades.
But times have changed. What was once unchallengeably good (or so we thought) has now become a very mixed blessing, at best, and unless we do something drastic about it within the next few decades, it will become a curse.
Unfortunately, we can’t carry on as we have been for a few years and then begin to take drastic action. We need to begin now to find alternatives to petroleum production and consumption.
Some of our provincial governments, B.C.’s among them with its surtax on automobile and heating fuel consumption, have recognized this and taken preliminary steps to meet the challenge. But our federal government either doesn’t acknowledge that the challenge exists or refuses to tackle it meaningfully.
Instead, it is promoting the building of oil pipelines to serve Asian and U.S. markets. Apart from the ecological harm done during the construction of the Enbridge line across B.C., the direct risks arising from these projects may or may not be overblown but it is inevitable that their operation will add to global warming, worldwide. And certainly they send Canadians and the rest of the world the wrong message.
The Harper government is taking only token steps to deal with this and other environmental threats, and even those have been offset by budgetary cuts and the gagging of scientific employees who might warn us about the growing environmental hazards.
Harper will only do what he needs to do if we, the people, use every legal means available, especially the ballot when we get the chance, to make him understand that “jobs, jobs, jobs” are fine but that there won’t be any jobs for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren unless he starts now to launch a meaningful assault on global warming.
It’s up to us — and we can’t afford to wait.
Peter Hepher is a retired journalist who lives in Creston.