In the battle between environmentalists and the pro-pipeline contingent in British Columbia, the argument often boils down (as so many 鈥渓eftish鈥� versus 鈥渞ightish鈥� battles do) to a few slender talking points.
The pro-environment people argue that the risk to our coastline just isn鈥檛 worth the potential gains, while the pro-energy people argue that the environmentalists simply don鈥檛 understand that tankers and pipelines will be good for the economy, and will therefore benefit us all.
I鈥檝e written before about how the environment-versus-the-economy dichotomy is a false one. Surely, in a healthy society, we need both to flourish, and surely, considering that the environment is the thing that sustains us on our planet, its health should trump short-term plans for economic gains.
But I think this is worth repeating in the light of a new report released by the United Nations鈥� scientific panel on climate change.
The report, which draws its information from more than 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies and has been approved by more than 100 national governments, lays out the types of wide-ranging risks that we鈥檙e facing.
鈥淭hings are worse than we had predicted,鈥� said Saleemul Huq, one of the authors of the report and director of Bangladesh鈥檚 International Centre for Climate Change and Development. Environmental disasters that are either caused by or exacerbated by global warming have been ramping up, and will continue to hit us harder and faster.
As David Suzuki said, we鈥檙e already feeling the effects of climate change, and it has already advanced beyond our ability to stop it.
Climate change is real, and it has been drastically influenced by human behaviour. These are facts that the scientific community is no longer debating. Indeed, the scientific community has been unanimous about this for years, despite what the lobbyists are (still!) attempting to argue.
Indeed, the few 鈥渄issenting voices鈥� in the climate-change debate aren鈥檛 arguing that it isn鈥檛 real or isn鈥檛 man-made, but that our current estimates about its dangers are too conservative. The question we now face is how to minimize its effects and deal with its inevitable results.
And yet, staggeringly, whenever we bring climate change into an economic or political arena, the urgency of creating sustainable solutions seems 鈥� magically 鈥� to fade into the background, as one concern among many. In B.C., the debate is being couched, as usual, as a matter of balancing environmental needs with economic needs, but this is a false equivalency.
In a world where climate change is real, supporting an energy policy that is not forward-thinking and not focused on renewable resources is a bad plan. Supporting the kinds of systems that are actively contributing to global warming is a bad plan. There鈥檚 no getting around that, and no amount of short-term economic gain will make it 鈥渨orth it.鈥�
We鈥檙e still hearing ads on the radio, talking about how pipeline proponents are putting safety systems in place to prevent large oil spills on our coasts, but that鈥檚 only a minor part of the larger issue. We鈥檙e worried about oil spills, absolutely, but we鈥檙e more worried about the bigger problem.
As we saw with our fisheries, muzzling our scientists or refusing to take their suggestions into account damages not only our environmental resources, but our long-term profits. Nobody wants to buy licey salmon, but that鈥檚 what we got when we didn鈥檛 farm them responsibly.
Promoting bad science (or in the case of climate change, simply flat-out ignoring the implications of what the scientific community is telling us) can result in short-term profits, but it鈥檚 an incredibly terrible long-term economic policy.
Climate change will exacerbate social problems on a global scale, as poorer regions will struggle to deal with the effects of natural disasters, but it will also impede the healthy flourishing of more affluent societies, argues the report.
Anyone who cares about the long-term economic health of our province should be focused on its environmental health.
It鈥檚 time to scrap the idea that being an environmentalist is in any way a fringe thing.
At this point, it鈥檚 barely even a leftist thing, because most of us can see the way the wind is blowing.
It鈥檚 not just good sense to care about the environment, it鈥檚 stupid not to.
听
