Copenhagen, Air Travel, and Tar Sands (and new year’s resolutions)
No-one should be surprised that the Copenhagen talks on climate change didn’t come up with an agreement. After a lot of talk, secret meetings, and deals we are no closer to the targets set in Kyoto in 1997. And although thousands of Canadians publicly demonstrated and signed petitions we were unsuccessful in urging the prime minister to champion our desire to address climate change.
It doesn’t mean we can roll over and play dead though.
More of us have to be willing to make real changes to our lifestyles of comfort and convenience to address climate change instead of relying on abstract emission targets that are still too low and blaming world leaders when they aren’t achieved. How many of us remember that it is the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world who will suffer the most while contributing the least to climate change and that we can make personal changes to turn that around? And how many of us recognize that by not voting, Stephen Harper and his ilk end up in positions that enable them to promote their vested interests instead of representing us in these and other crucial areas?
Surveys indicate that the majority of Canadians are worried about climate change, but somewhere between our good intentions lays a sea of inertia, denial, and insecurity. We like the stuff that lets us have fun, look good, gain status, or be pampered. We like not having to remember to bring our own coffee cups or shopping bags. We like not having to wash and re-use plastic bags, take out the compost, or spend time hanging clothes on a line. And we like ‘getting away from it all’ with winter trips to Florida, Mexico, or Cuba – flights that cost us all in environmental degradation.
Canadians are flying to warm climates to bask in the sunshine, seeing it as our right and apparently oblivious or unconcerned about the plight of the world’s poor. Statistics Canada says that in 2007, there were 71.5 million trips made by air in Canada.We don’t want to think that our actions could be responsible for tsunamis, forest fires, and landslides that will have the worst effect on the poorest people on the planet. Surely that would tarnish the (undeserved) good image we have ourselves.
On the small island of Tuvalu in the South Pacific, global warming is not an threat looming in the unfathomable future. The people there see the effects of global warming daily and fear for their live. Rising sea levels threaten the very island on which they live. And Tuvalu is not the only place adversely threatened by imminent effects of climate change. Thousands of coastal communities in Africa and Asia are sitting ducks as wind patterns and rising sea levels swirl around them increasing the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, and tsunamis.
And still we take our tropical vacations.
The David Suzuki Foundation states that “although aviation is a relatively small industry, it has a disproportionately large impact on the climate system” accounting for 4-9% of the total climate change impact of human activity and has a greater climate impact per passenger kilometre. High-altitude emissions apparently have a more harmful climate impact because they trigger a series of chemical reactions and atmospheric effects that have a net warming effect two to four times greater than the effect of carbon dioxide emissions alone.
In England, a network of grassroots groups called Plane Stupid, is committed to non-violent direct action against aviation’s climate impact. They say that an average flight in Europe produces over 400 kg of GHG per passenger (the weight of an adult polar bear) and proposes a global levy on flights with proceeds going into an adaptation fund for the world’s most vulnerable people. They have produced a sensationalist video incorporating polar bears falling from the sky- images that are hard to erase from your mind once you’ve seen them.
To bring the issue full circle and to understand Canada’s role in electing (by absentia) a prime minister who represents oil interests , much of the fuel used to propel airplanes comes from the catastrophic tar sands industry which now accounts for a third of the crude oil production in northern Alberta.
The tar sands project is world’s largest energy project, using more energy, money, and water to extract oil than conventional methods. It takes one barrel of oil to produce five and the project will destroy 80 % of wildlife in the region not to mention threaten the very existence of the pristine Mackenzie River Basin – the third largest watershed in the world
At the same time as the tar sands projects are destructive to the environment during extraction, their end product is also worse than conventional oil products. Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands : Dirty oil and the future of a continent says that the dirty oil that comes from the tar sands emits 20-30% more greenhouse gases (GHG) than conventional oil. And this at a time when scientists say we need a 70% reduction in GHG emissions needed to turn the tide of global warming. Yet neither the Alberta nor Canadian governments have credible plans to manage these emissions and in fact, their regulatory bodies continue to approve permits for additional projects.
Unbeknownst to most consumers, nearly 10% of oil currently consumed in the west now comes from tar sands projects. So when you’re driving your car or flying in a plane, chances are the fuel for your trip is coming – at least partially – from dirty oil – another blight on the environment.
And this billion dollar industry is what is influencing the decisions of politicians on the provincial and federal levels, largely for the benefit of American consumers at the expense of Canadian resources.
Alberta is what Nikiforuk calls a petro state, a kind of political territory with notoriously low voter turn-out allowing the government and its regulatory bodies to play patsy to an industry that is lining the coffers of influential financial supporters. In the last provincial election voter turn-out was as low as 22%.
Federally, we are not doing much better. When only a paltry 50% of eligible voters went to the polls in last year’s election, we essentially gave the conservatives (whose supporters do make a point of voting) the right to make decisions for us. And for Canadians at this point, this means allowing a prime minister whose base of support is the oil patch in general and the tar sands in particular, to represent us on the world stage. No wonder Harper did such a lousy job in Copenhagen. His interests lie with his petroleum pals and until we unite and turf out the likes of him, it won’t matter how much we complain to him, petition him, or how shamed he is by receiving the fossil of the year award.
Think about that when you look into a child’s sweet and trusting face (whether your own or another’s anywhere in the world). Imagine their future without polar bears, eagles, bananas, the boreal forest, clean air or clean water. Imagine the same baby living on an island in the South Pacific or Asia or Africa and think about if it’s fair for you to travel for your own enjoyment or enrichment when it puts many others’ lives at peril.
In this time of new years’ resolutions, I urge you to resolve to sharply curtail your own air travel (or eliminate it completely). Get your family and friends to pledge too, while thinking about ways to retrofit the economy to fill the vacuum left by the decline of the aviation and petroleum industries. And be sure to vote when you’ve got the chance.
