New Media

Climate change and Alberta’s oil sands are on the agenda for Canadian premiers meeting in Vancouver. But will anything of substance be accomplished?

Economic and environmental realities make it pretty unlikely they’ll even be able to cobble together crude principles. BC Premier Gordon Campbell can lecture his Albertan political counterpart all he likes on the dangers of greenhouse gases (although given BC’s record to date on cutting greenhouse gases, that might be a bit odd), but there’s a thirst for Albertan oil out there.

The world needs ever-increasing amounts of oil and Alberta has a big chunk of the planet’s known reserves. That’s going to be a tough reality to face down.

But the way the tar sands oil gets extracted is the cause of a large percentage of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Pressure needs to be put on Albertan oil companies by politicians to ensure that they don’t turn much of western Canada into a polluted desert in return for all the petrodollars they’re earning.

Six Metres and Rising
A play in one act
(Generously submitted to Currents by friend and creative genius Mr. Earnest Canuck)

CAST.
DAVID SUZUKI, an environmentalist.
STEPHEN HARPER, a politician.
WEN JIABAO, another politician.
KING CANUTE, another.
GLOBAL CLIMATE, an entity, played by a hot woman.
KYOTO, a dog.

CURTAIN. A Vancouver beach in winter. DAVID SUZUKI, wearing only a thong, performs labourious Tai Chi exercises, puffing out his cheeks. Enter STEPHEN HARPER, carrying a laptop.

HARPER: What kind of activity are you carrying out there, David Suzuki?

SUZUKI: Capping, pant, my emissions of greenhouse, pant, gasses, Prime, pant, Minister.

HARPER: Really? And this capping, is it the manner of thing done by cool people, statistically?

SUZUKI (angrily): Yes…!

HARPER (thoughtfully): I should have capped my emissions when I was a schoolboy. Statistically, I might have reduced the percentile of days spent with my underwear around my neck. Statistically. (Sits, opens laptop.) Hey, Suzuki…? What’s 450 million years old and two miles thick?

SUZUKI: Your government’s heartless indifference, maybe, to future generations? Ha, ha!

HARPER: Ha, ha! Ha. Um, no, though. Let me refer to the punchline here. It was the ice sheet in Ordovician times, when atmospheric carbon dioxide was ten times higher than –

(Enter GLOBAL CLIMATE, pursued by KING CANUTE. WEN JIABAO reluctantly trails in after them.)

GLOBAL CLIMATE: Micronations! Crop failure! SUVs! Sustainable! Carbon trading! Sustainability! Fossil fuels! Flossing!

KING CANUTE (imploringly): Why were you so hot for me, Global Climate, and now you’re so cold? Please! Baby! Can’t we go through the highs and lows together? Don’t go changing, just to please me –

WEN JIABAO: All right, King Canute, that’s enough. You’ll never lower her tube top’s see level. It’s futile! Now get the hell out of here.

CANUTE: I’ll turn her back someday. You’ll see. (Slinks offstage.)

CLIMATE (sadly): King Canute consensus oilsands inconvenient truthiness? (Suddenly enraged) Mean temperature! Ice calves! Sequester! Monbiot! Monbiot!

SUZUKI: So, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. How are you?

JIABAO: Harper, Suzuki, hello. Frankly, I’m a little tired of dealing with this Global Climate bi —

HARPER: Bit of a policy challenge, with a range of costs and opportunities, you’re saying, Wen? I feel you. That is, I empathize with you. I’m feeling you.

JIABAO: I was saying, she’s not my problem. Also, she’s a skank.

SUZUKI: Whoa!

HARPER: Easy!

CLIMATE: Protocol! Sweet light crude! Protocol!

JIABAO: Whatever. She’s quite aware what she’s going through. You all stay away from my house, all right? (Exit. He shouts from offstage.) Climate changes! It’s what she does!

HARPER: So. Um. Ms. Climate. Would you care for a light massage? Several studies have shown it might be medicinally beneficial. Within a margin of error. Statistically.

CLIMATE: Recycling incentive biosphere solar panel?

SUZUKI: Damn you, Harper! Just because this country has one per cent of the world’s weather, doesn’t mean you can fiddle with Global Climate, you, you… pollutant…

HARPER: David, I would ask you to reduce your face-punching anger by a few degrees, now. Over the next predictive time period, I mean… voluntarily…

SUZUKI: Despoiler! Climate flirter!

(HARPER and SUZUKI begin to wrestle and stagger offstage, pursued by the agitated CLIMATE.)

CLIMATE: Community gardens organic bicycle. Healing spiritual dialogue circle! Dialogue! Deniers! Exxon! Monbiot!

(Exit. Enter KYOTO.)

KYOTO: As we have seen tonight, friends, climate is a thing that affects us all. In these troubled times, we can no longer deny that each of us has some emissions. Globular warmening is no longer just a recipe, but a scientishly-acknowledged truism. Our duty to the planet and to future generations is clear: we must fossilize our remaining fuel resources. And wherever sea-level communities are threatened by changing climaxes, kibble must be provided, friends, as much kibble as the developed world can spare, lest overheated dogs lead us straight into environmental catastrophe. I may be just a small dog in a big atmosphere, my fellow citizens, but believe me: I was named for a treaty, and I know.

Canada ranks fourth-worst in a study of countries’ climate change performance.

Having recently researched the topic of climate change impact in the Vancouver area for a magazine piece, the numbers aren’t all that surprising. Canada does have a lot of work to do (though some municalities like Vancouver and Toronto are in fact leading the way in terms of climate change planning).

It is odd, though, that China would not be ranking right up there, considering it is overall the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. And how does Indonesia get off scot-free? Meanwhile, India gets ranked in the top five on the survey, despite the country’s rapid deforestation and coal-fired energy plants?

Of course it’s not fair that newly developing countries should have to share the burden of cutting carbon output to fight global warming. But fair or not, it’s necessary, or we’re all in trouble.

When those deja-vu inducing promos came out for “Who Killed the Electric Car?” a while back, I started wondering whether the technology for an environmentally friendly, non-oil sheik supporting car would ever be brought to the mass market. The most highly-skilled engineers in the world could build a magic flying carpet a la Alladin, but if entrenched corporate interests didn’t like the ramifications (ie. oil profits plummet) then the final product just ain’t gonna fly.

The proposed Hydrogen Highway of hydrogen refueling stations stretching from beautiful BC down to sunny California could finally get the hydogen-powered vehicle industry moving. After all, no one’s going to buy a car that they can’t drive because there’s nowhere to fill it up. It truly is a case of “build it, and they will come.”

Congratulations are in order for Leaf Rapids, the first North American community to order retailers to stop giving away or selling single-use plastic bags as of today (Stores that break the law face a C$1,000 ($865) fine).

I’ve recycled plastic bags for as long as I can remember.

Still, re-using a Safeway bag a couple of times for lunch until it inevitably tears or gets covered in leftover grease still leaves a hundred bags or so per year in the landfill (or the recycling box at the liquor store, after which it will eventually end up in the landfill anyway).

That’s about 5,000 bags over my lifetime that might get stuck in some poor bird’s stomach. They take a thousand years to break down, so it’s quite plausible that I might just choke a few birds with the same bag. Not a pleasant thought. Besides, these bags are made from oil, which we seem to be running out of faster than us consumeristic Westerners would like.

Since I’ve been on a bit of an environmental crusade of late, it’s time to up the ante: no more plastic bags. From now on, it’s canvas all the way, baby.