Climate Change: It's Just Too Difficult, Darling ...
Globe and Mail columnist Peggy Wente, so recently converted to the cause of climate change, weighs in again today to say that she "almost" feels sorry for Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose.While acknowledging that Ambrose's proposed Clean Air Act is a joke that won't begin to address climate change within a realistic time frame, Wente goes on to say that nothing Canada does will solve the problem worldwide.
(Aside from, perhaps, showing leadership and establishing a national economic advantage in developing alternative energy technology, she's right. But I lose the thread of her argument. What's her point: that we should give up?)
Wente concludes that "Global warming is like peacekeeping, only harder." And you can rest assured that she's gonna stay belted in her SUV, broaching no risk that she might chip a nail answering to either challenge.
There is a way
Often I have heard that nothing we do (Australia/Canada/US/UK/China) can solve the problem worldwide. Not really the truth as we have created and continue to create the problem. The system we use is deeply flawed as it does not consider the environmental costs associated with production & endless growth. What happens is we change now. Stop shipping goods from China, Wheat from Canada, Minerals from Australia and of course oil for the USA. Global trade is killing our world.
No Corporation or Government is going to suddenly stop business from some environmental concerns. They will make hay while the sun shines or fiddle as the world burns. Close the borders-stop the commerce. If it's shipped or transported more than 100km the transport tax begins. The further it travels the more it costs-no more cheap clothes from China. No more cheap oil-taxed on the distance travelled from supplier to consumer, real environmental costs will enter into the price of products.
We must become as self sufficient locally as possible. Can you feed/clothe/shelter yourself locally or do the energy & goods used by you need to be transported to you.? Would you walk to Columbia for a coffee? or perhaps India for a new computer? Just a thought-have you tasted your money lately? When large scale agriculture & fisheries collapse from changes we have made to our environment we may have the chance.