the rant continues...

Sorry, but I'm not quite finished with the rant that I began a week ago. This is especially timely given recent press, the BC NDP's so-called report card on the environment and the Vancouver area opposition MLA's energy forum held last week at the Heritage Hall in Vancouver. What is one to get from all of the attention that the environment is getting lately? Global warming is a reality and its because of everything that everyone else is doing. At least that's how I read it.

I did read an interesting letter in yesterday's Vancouver Sun. Basically, in the view of the letter writer no one "gives a damn about global warming" or is able to see the connection between their cars and the environment. Not too far off I would say as last Friday I myself witnessed a couple sitting outside of my son's school in their idling mini-van. They were there for at least ten minutes... but then it was pretty cold out that day.

When it comes to the environment we are all hypocrites! As Environment Minister Penner said in a recent interview "individuals have a role to play" and in my view it has been the BC Liberals that have actually done the most for the environment lately as they have invested heavily in projects that encourage alternate transportation, created plans to address environmental issues today and in the future through tax incentives (among other things) and reduced greenhouse gases in the government by 24%. We blame our government for its contribution to global warming when in reality that contribution is ours. Its easy to blame because that negates us as individuals from having to do anything about it on our own. In reality nothing will change until we start to do something about the way that we manage our own houses.

Last Wednesday a friend of mine pointed out an article on the front of the Vancouver Sun. The heading read "US freeze means you'll pay more" and basically the story warns us of impending doom at the supermarket cash register thanks to the recent and unexpected freeze in California. Nearly 80% of some Californian crops have been wiped out thanks to obviously much colder than normal temperatures. Interestingly, as my friend points out the article didn't touch on some of the potential contributors that the purchase of foreign produce has toward global warming.

The extremely unusual weather that we (and California) have faced this past year will undoubtedly be linked somehow to the the poor state of the environment and global warming. California produce has been almost wiped out in part because of the market that has been created for it and the manner in which it reaches the world. While I am in full support of the BC Liberals Gateway Program (getting vehicles off of the road quicker still seems like a good idea to me), opponents fear that expansion of the south Fraser perimeter road will destroy the "lungs" of the lower mainland (Burns Bog). What they seem to fail to mention is that a large reason for this expansion is to improve the passage of freight, in other words all of those trucks carrying (among other things) California produce to the communities of British Columbia. There is one of those connections that the Sun letter writer alludes to.

Don't get me wrong. Although my family and I have made some significant changes in the way that we do things, we are far from perfect. Like the NDP opposition MLA's last Wednesday I admit that I also don't have the answers (they didn't exactly admit to that though) but certain things (like idling your van for ten minutes outside your kids school) do seem like common sense to me. Problem is that until we all see the common sense in the things that we are doing or not doing, the Sun letter writer will continue to be correct, except on one point. I believe that most of us really do "give a damn" about global warming, we're just in denial about the significance that our individual contribution has on it.