Welcome to Archeron.ca
Your One-Stop useless drivel and blather corner of the
World Wide Waste-of-time!
Past postings.
The new Gay
Gun control, Gayness, and now Green. Yes folks, that's right, Green is the new Gay, at least as far as politicians are concerned in the up-coming federal election race. As we careen toward the impending expenditure of some 200-plus million dollars of tax-payer's money, strategists have been wracking their collective brains to come up with the latest G-word to harmonize with the ever-present health-care mantra common to every election since the inception of universal health care. With all the attention focused on global warming of late, the adoption of Green as the pet cause of politicians everywhere was inevitable. Polls show Canadians, Europeans, and yes, even some Americans and Asians are increasingly interested in and supportive of green issues. This coincides with politicians being increasingly interested in and needing support voters. So the logical next step: Politicians are all about green.
As per the usual order of things, when political pundits become involved in an issue, they have a knack for zeroing in on exactly the portion of the issue that the notoriously poorly informed television-viewing public is aware of and ignoring the complications introduced by the big picture. The Green bandwagon is no exception. Global warming has received piles of press coverage in recent years, and rightly so. I see a time in the not-too-distant future when the global-warming-denier is tarred with the same stick as the holocaust-denier: worthy of ridicule, a social heretic, even a criminal. As these titles equate to political suicide, it is not remarkable that politicians of all alignments are embracing the cause, albeit in a way to satisfy their similarly-aligned allies and voter base. However, other green issues outside of the focus of the limelight do not share the same attention when it comes to election promises and policy decisions. As is usual when faced with too short a mandate and unpopular decisions to make, those charged with the leadership of our population and policy elect to do only the palatable and avoid broaching topics that fall outside their primary responsibility: vote gathering.
As many of us know, the green list of causes contains far more than global warming alone. The complete list is far too long to mention here, but anyone with half a clue could bring to mind a number of them with little mental effort. While avoiding the minor issues and pet causes of the wealthy and misdirected like seal clubbing, spotted owls and dancing bears, it is easy to come up with a few larger problems with global impact. The decimation of the world's rain forests, the depopulation of the ocean's fish stocks and the pollution of the world's fresh water supplies are only three named for no particular reason other than to provide an example. These three have historically been labeled by the political machine as the raving of long-haired, pot-smoking lunatics, a cause for over-zealous, cause-seeking Greenpeace activists and a third-world problem, thankfully not ours respectively. However, these and many issued like them are real, but are ignored by politicians because they remain, for all the wrong reasons, fringe issues.
There are only two reasons to stare in the face of global calamity and ignore it even though you have the power to do something: one bad but understandable, and one worse. The latter is so ridiculous, an explanation for its prevalence must lie somewhere in the realm of psychologists. This is the argument that goes like this: No one else is moving on this so why should I bother because I alone can't fix it. It almost sounds logical, except that it leads to a self-feeding cycle of inaction. Some of the justification for this viewpoint may come from the afore-mentioned second reason, that being that the economic cost of bringing about the necessary changes is too great. Like I said, almost understandable. Understandable that is, until you pick up a dictionary and read the definition of the word necessary. The cost of addressing these problems is going to get greater, not smaller, and will certainly never go away. The only way these cost are going to shrink, is when the problem has killed enough people that, though the per-capita expense remains similar, that aggregate cost is reduced. Is this what our politicians are waiting for? Things to get so bad that they can justify an unpopular decision? Perhaps they give us ignorant masses too little credit. At least a portion of society is willing to make an investment in the future; some short-term pain for long-term gain.
So what do we do? I can't pretend to have a handle on the European and Asian attitudes. North America is disturbing with respect to the Canadians and the Americans. While the Americans who are informed do great work and have loud voices, there are far too many who continue to stick their head in front of the TV (read head in sand) and make a concerted effort to ignore the problems facing the world concentrating instead on the great low prices at Walmart. Canadians have about the same proportion of men of action while the rest sit with is their homes, watching American TV, thinking about how better informed they are than the Americans, yet still doing nothing. The latter groups are the darlings of politicians on both sides of the border. Them and the faceless economic engines that power our nations' money supply. Incidentally, it is these very engines making sure that while we sit there watching TV with heads in sand, any mentions of these serious issues facing humanity are accompanied by the appropriate laugh-track. The role of the economic interests is alas a topic for a future article. Let me just say this: People are ready. If the stock market, which must grow above inflation at all costs, is no longer allowed to dictate environmental policy, there is a good possibility a politician with some guts could make an unpopular decision and still be re-elected. The voting public has put their faith in their political leaders. Perhaps it is time they reciprocated.
Older stories:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
|
