SOONER OR later,
will close her doors.

Canada

It’s going to be an agonizing
decision-making process, to be
sure, but in the end I don’t think
we'll have much choice.
The problem is, the world “out
there” is going to hell in an over-
flowing hand-basket. We're in for
trouble, too, but (barring an Ice Age
triggered by pollution) we should
be able to survive without enduring
a complete collapse into anarchy.
Unless, of course, we fail to
close our doors. It won't be a mat-
ter so much of “closing” our doors,
actually, as sealing them and barri-
cading them.
You may have read an article in
the February edition of The Atlantic
‘Monthly titled The New Anarchy,

by Robert D. Kaplan, a widely trav-
” elled journalist who has seen for
himself what a mess is developing
out there.

T strongly urge you to get hold
of the piece. It will shake up your
illusions about future security.
Kaplan’s message: chaos is closing
in around us faster than we like to
think. .

By “us” T don’t mean just

-. Canadians. I mean people in lucky
parts of the industrialized world.

* As Kaplan describes us: “a
minority of the human population

.. living in cities and suburbs in >

which the environment has been
mastered and ethnic animosities
have been quelled by bourgeois

- prosperity.”

' Qutside these industrialized
compounds, “increasingly large
numbers of people will be ... living
‘in shantytowns where attempts to
rise above poverty, cultural dys-
function, and ethnic strife will be
doomed by a lack of water to drink,
soil to till, and space to survive in.”

Look at the numbers: 5.5 billion
human beings, soaring to nine bil-

“+ fion in the next 50 years.
- ‘That world of nine billion
human beings — coming’in less
than our kids’ lifetimes, never mind
our poor grandchildren — is going
to be a disaster.

Drawing on the work of Thomas

. Fraser Homer-Dixon, head of the
Peace and Conflict Studies Program
at the University of Toronto,
Kaplan writes:

“\.while the media will continue
to ascribe riots and other violent
upheavals abroad mainly to ethnic
and religious conflict ... as these
conflicts multiply it will become
apparent that something else is
afoot, making more and more
places like Nigeria, India, and
Brazil ungovernable.

“Mention ‘the environment’ or
‘diminishing natural resources’ in
foreign-policy circles, and you
meet a brick wall of skepticism or
boredom. To conservatives espe-

ITS
Paradise almost los

STRICTLY PERSONAL.

cially, the very terms seem flaky.

“.. Ibis time to understand ‘the
environment’ for what itis: the
national-security issue of the early
2} st century.

“The political and strategic
impact of surging populations,
spreading disease, deforestation and
soil erosion, water depletion, air
pollution, and, possibly, rising sea

- levels in critical, overcrowded

regions like the Nile Delta and
Bangladesh — developments that
will prompt mass migrations and, in
turn, incite group conflicts — will
be the core foreign-policy challenge
from which most others will ulti-
mately emanate...”

You may also have seen a recent ~

news report in which scientists cal-
culated that the world’s population
must be reduced by one-third of
what it is now by the end of year
2100 in order for the human race to
achieve long-term sustainability.

If things are somehow left to go
on the way they are, there would be
12 billion people, and we would be
finished.

Cinada is not going to be able to
take in those billions of starving,
drowning, tortured people.

Our civilization would collapse
under the strain. It would be like
survivors in a lifeboat trying to save
all the passengers from a sunken
Hiner. It can’t be done, not without
drowning yourseif.

Lifeboat Canada is already rid-
ing low in the water, at least on the
starboard side of the Rockies, and
when Quebec bails out, the creak-
ing and groaning sound yearil hear
will be the planks of the rest of the
country coming apart,

I think it is testimony “o the
power of the Great Canaclian Guilt
Complex that we feel we have to do
something about unfortunates
everywhere. Do we? Who else
does? Does everyone?

i grant you this sounds hard. But
maybe it’s time for some hardness,
to save ourselves from disaster
down the road.

B.C's Premier Marina: Now Has

RIOORAGE AVAILABLE

Down the road?

Have you tried to go camping
lately? Have you tried to find a
place to anchor your boat, never
mind dock it, during the summer?

Have you tried driving some-
place ina hurry? Have you attended
a beach? A park? Canoed on a like
near a city on the weekend?

Getting crowded, ain't it?

Looking both ways — out at the
world and over our shoulder —- we

.confront nature,

In both cases, we confront her
limits. The devastated forests. The
clam-strapped tidal flats. The
fished-out streams, And out there?
Anarchy driven by environmental
collapse.

Maybe it’s time to start asking

_ ourselves when we're going to start

scaling down, never mind growing
any more populous than we are.

If we are serious about hanging
in for the long haul, there should be
fewer Canadians enjoying the great
treasure of this land, not more.
That's the only way it has even a
chance of remaining a treasure.

Let the tourists come. And let
them go home.

DANIEL JARVIS

CUSTOM
BEDSPREADS,
TRACKS AND

VALANCGES

Labour $8.50 per
panel unlined,
$9.50 lined.

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DANIEL JARVIS

North Vancouver-Seymour Constituency

THE B.C. LEGISLATURE OPENS:

- TOMORROW -
MARCH 14, 1994

A NEW THRONE SPEECH AND A
NEW BUDGET WILL BE PRESENTED.

MANY ISSUES WILL AFFECT
NORTH VANCOUVER-SEYMOUR

¢ Education and Funding

© Casinos and Gambling on the

North Shore

¢ A New Crossing ~ Bridge/Tunnel?
® Seniors’ Issues
© Health Care Issues

® Water —

Chlorine/Chloramine?

THE ISSUES HERE ARE SECURITY, LEADERSHIP,
AND ACCOUNTABILITY

H t
© 860 Berth Full Service Marina Call me with your concerns.
* BC's Most Proiected Mocrage__ 984-2692
e 24 hr. Staffed Security
« Competitively Priced

° Ample Secured Parking

CALL SOON — AVAILABILITY LIMITED ~ 921-7434
Thunderbird Marina — Fisherman's Cove
5776 Marine Dr., West Vancouver, BC.

"Sat, March 26th — Holy Trinity Hall -27th / Lonsdale.
- FORUM: A NEW. CROSSING: '“Bridge/Tunnel? -