This election seems to have many Canadians scratching their heads: What’s it about? Who to vote for? Why vote at all? The answers to these questions depend on whether you think the environment – and more particularly taking action on climate change right now – really matters.
Let’s put this election in its real context: We are currently facing the greatest threat to the liveability of our planet in human civilization. Scientists like NASA’s James Hansen are telling us that our carbon emissions are already well into the red zone. Other scientists are warning us about the relentless build-up of toxics in our environment and the snowballing extinction of species.
So it’s time to discuss something more substantive than which party has the best TV ads. It’s time to talk about how we are going to remake Canada’s approach to living sustainably. It’s time to talk about how we are going to keep the natural world that is the foundation of our prosperity healthy and functioning. It’s a big subject, but it is also one that we should expect any party that wants to form a government to have some big ideas about.
As the people who think, eat and breathe environmental issues on a daily basis, we have plenty to say about what Canada could be doing better and what it needs to be doing right now. We’ve put these ideas down in a document called Tomorrow Today: How Canada can make a world of difference (available at tomorrowtodaycanada.ca). It’s a call to action and an agenda for how to transform our country from an environmental laggard – ranked 28th out of 29 developed countries by the OECD on a survey of key environmental indicators – to being a world leader.
Let’s be clear: There are big changes coming, whether we are ready or not. Unchecked climate change will devastate our environment and dramatically reshape our world. A continuing loss of biodiversity is going to leave us more and more vulnerable to sudden and radical shifts in natural systems. And continuing to dump toxins and pollutants into our atmosphere and waterways is going to leave us scrambling to cope with the massive health and economic impacts of dirty air and water.
So, as the politicians like to say, we need to get ahead of the curve. We need to make the transition to a more sustainable economy by recognizing the false (in fact, insane) economy of allowing companies to freely pollute. We need to protect far more of our forests, waters and wetlands because they are immensely valuable assets — assets most countries can only dream of once possessing — instead of treating them as an endless source of cheap resources. And we need to recognize that we have the world-leading wealth, resources and know- how to be global leaders in sustainability – all we need is the will.
The place to start is with addressing climate change. Climate change essentially takes all of our other environmental problems …