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

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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

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