4 - Wednesday, February 12, 1992 - North Shore News The sky 1s falling a commitment to the future now We owe our children BELIEVE IT or not, I try not to write about ecology. After more than 20 years of trying to articulate ecological modes of thought, 1, for one, am sick of the subject. Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL I’m not the only one. On those sare occasions when | get iogether with old cronies from the early days of the environmental meve- ment (way back, good lord, in Kitsilano in the late '60s, if you can beliéve it!), the topic is almost never ecology. We talk about kids. We talk about property. We complain about traffic, taxes, Japan, Bush, smoking or not smoking. We discuss Quebec. Mulroney is worth a try at trying to top the other person’s put-down of him. And the banks, of course, the bloody cartel of Canadian bank- ing. These are always safe subjects. Like racism and capitalism and religion, they are the stuff of normal human discussion. When I say ‘‘normal,'’ I mean the kind of stuff our species has had to deal with more or less all along. Maybe bankers and air- And then there's the global warming phenomenon, which is directly attributable to our own cars, vans and pickups, the vehi- cles we use to pick up those kids we love such much from school and drive them to wherever their little hearts desire. I talked to a highly-placed fed- eral scientist-bureaucrat the other day who was trying to explain why Ottawa is promising to spend $86 million on research into global warming, while doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce carbon dioxide emissions. To the contrary, the feds are pouring more than $200 million into petroleum-industry projects like Hibernia. It boggles the mind to imagine that fine fellows like Jake Epp, the energy minister who enjoys his Caddie, can somehow be blissfully 1891 HOLLYBURN unaware of the truth of what the scientist-bureaucrat had to say, which was that global warming is inevitable — it is already well- advanced — and that sooner or later, the only cure is going to be to cut back on the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we're put- ting into the atmosphere. By failing to control our emis- sions now — whether of CFCs or CO2 — we are absolutely guaran- teeing that our children and grandchildren are going to suffer enormously from radiation and overheating and all the cumulative disastrous effects on the food chain, Like I say, we don't talk about eculogy in private much, me and my old friends. We've mostly got kids. We know that time is runn- ing out rapidly. We know that all the levels of goverrment are dicking around because there’s no political consti- tuency representing the future yet, and therefore no lobby. And we ourselves have either spent our energy or we have sim- ply gat to the terrible point where, knowing that things will not be unbearable within our lifetimes, we quietly Ict slide our concern about anything beyond then. The kids will be grown up by then, We'll not only have retired and spent the family fortune, we'll have had the luck to die before the environmental holocaust ar- rives. Maybe that’s why we don’t talk about ecology. It follows that a desire to avoid talking about the bad eco-news would translate pretty quickly into a desire not to read about it, let / . ohanarontb DISCOUNT. AND TRADE-IN TOGETHER wi H AN_ = paeH TREATS: alone write about or print it. And so, we all happily shift our focus any whichwherever looks safe. This desire to feel good is all very understandable. It's just that it has to be registered to at least some degree, otherwise a totally false sense of security can (and if it can, is very liable to) set in. No one suggests it’s easy to face the future, especially as the bleak prophecies of the ecologists come true, one by one. Every once in a while, however, one has to carve out a moment in which to consider the mess we're making, and the effect it’s going to have. And maybe just think for a few seconds how we ought to change our style, otherwise we're screwing our own kids. What kind of people would do that? 1992 HOLLYBURN HYUNDAI SCOUPE L ports are new forms of stress, but usury and congestion are eternal. Ecology falls into a different category. Ir falls into the category of medical problems, almost. It is so close to the bone that one's eyes roil over, as when Aunt So-And-So starts talking about her unpro nounceable-ectomy. It’s too damned real. We all know that there are major so- called environmental problems. We are badgered with these prob- lems every day. They get closer and closer to home. Now it’s down to the point where parents routinely fret about how much sunblock they’ve smeared on their kids’ shoulders and backs. In places like Australia, the deterioration of the ozone layer is so far advanced that kids are not allowed out of school at recess or lunch unless they’re completely coated with cream to ward off the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Close to home? Hell, a story like this strikes terror into every parent’s heart. I don’t know about you, but | already swab my kids with sunblock before they’re allowed to go out in the midday ; . sun. . ies om en Q L THIS NOTA LEASE FEIT AND POI MCLUDED It’s a minor nuisance, perhaps, r ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA CHARGES. but think what it means. We are ee talking about being exposed to probably 8% more ultraviolet tadiation every year than we used to be just a decade ago. 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