In CBC’s poignant and politically astute radio comedy, Dead Dog Cafe, Jasper Friendlybear and Gracie Heavyhand usually end each program with the following wisdom: “Stay calm! Be brave! Wait for the signs!” This is advice we could all use as the immensity of our environmental challenges begin to focus more clearly.
Perhaps our dilemma is best summarized by John Vidal’s comments in The Guardian Weekly (Feb.9/07). “On current trends, says the UN’s International Energy Agency, which collates national figures and predicts demand, humanity will need twice as much energy as it uses today within 35 years. Where that comes from will define the next century. Produce too little energy, say the economists, and there will be price hikes and a financial crash unlike any the world has ever
known, with possible resource wars, depression and famines. Produce the wrong sort of energy, say the climate scientists, and we will have more droughts, floods, rising seas, and worldwide economic disaster with runaway global warming.”
No wonder Vidal calls his piece, “Crunch Time for Decision Makers”.
Professor William Rees, the renowned economist from UBC who originated the “global footprint” idea, has framed our dilemma more ominously.
“What is politically feasible is ecologically irrelevant, and what is ecologically necessary is politically impossible” (Globe & Mail, Mar.28/07).
Read these two quotes again. Then read them once more. Perhaps several times. Let the implications sink in. Try to stay calm. Try to be brave.
Both Rees and Vidal might be wrong. But that likelihood is diminishing rapidly as UN reports and thousands of scientists describe the parameters of our global environmental predicament. In the words of James Lovelock, the grand old ecologist who devised the Gaia Theory, “We’ve come to the end our tether.” The intelligent reaction to such a
predicament should be profound concern constrained by calm and bravery.
But what of the signs? When will they come? How will they arrive? What can we do? Can we know what measures will be effective?
As the pitch of concern rises, so does the search for solutions. Because the basic problem is structural — we burn too much fossil fuel, consume too many resources, and we are too numerous — the solutions will take time. We have a globalized, industrialized civilization that must somehow correct its own defects.
Despite the urgency of our predicament, staying calm and being brave require patience — not the evasive patience of denial or procrastination but the focused patience that enables a stark and honest assessment of our options. Panic is the last thing we need. This is not a time for ill-considered and precipitous actions that waste our time, undermine
our confidence and exhaust our willpower. Solutions that make us feel better but only provide a semblance of a cure will only make matters worse. Consider two examples. Ethanol derived from grain is a bio-fuel which will probably provide little net reduction in our fossil fuel consumption. The marginal benefits will not be worth the environmental damage or the dollar and social costs of diverting valuable food crops away from our rising nutritional needs. At best, this source of ethanol will only ease our addiction to unsustainable oil consumption. Even worse, the primary incentive for producing ethanol is probably to reduce a dependence on diminishing oil supplies from politically unstable countries. Ethanol from a grain source needs more thoughtful consideration before we heavily invest our money and hopes in it.
Extended daylight saving is another example of dubious solutions The initiative, coming from the United States, expected that people would use less electricity during the three extra weeks of daylight, thereby reducing America’s energy consumption by 0.4 percent — the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil per day. That hasn’t happened. Energy consumption has remained flat, according to a study by Peter Tertzakian, the chief economist of ARC Financial Corporation (Globe & Mail, Apr.18/07). He describes the extension of daylight saving as a classical example of politicians “exacerbating the problems they were originally trying to tackle.” With more spare evening time, Americans engaged in their favourite activity — they went driving. The result was an increase from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent in the rising rate of gas consumption. The additional energy consumption represents 266,000 barrels per day, over 26 times the amount that was supposed to be reduced by extending daylight saving. The added demand on oil has stressed supplies, taxed refinery capacity, and forced up the price of gasoline.
If the best political solutions are painless, we are rapidly running out of such options. The predicament we are facing is systemic and
fundamental, and is unlikely to be solved by comfortable patching. Revolutionary energy technologies, if they will even work on the massive
scales required, are still decades away. Meanwhile, the foreboding future gets closer every day. No wonder psychologists have identified a new disorder called “eco-anxiety”.
But this anxiety is prelude to the necessary changes we must undergo if we are to become ecologically compatible with our planet. And we can prepare ourselves for these important changes by staying calm and being brave.
As for the signs, they will come from our scientists and their research, from a dispassionate analysis of our predicament, from our growing sense of urgency, and from a brutally honest appraisal of
ourselves. Nature, too, will instruct and encourage us. Our challenge will be to act with a wisdom unimpaired by fear.