In 2004, Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote, “The only higher purpose we could possibly possess is to seek to relieve suffering: our own and that of other people and other animals.” The last six years have not diminished the truth of his statement. If anything, our hurtling towards mass extinction only makes it ever more relevant. We need to realize that higher purpose now.
The harmful effects human beings have had on the Earth’s climate, the other living things in it, and ultimately ourselves, are well-known. Statistics abound: read a local paper, or take almost any university course. The environmental crisis weasels its way-as it rightly should-into most of them. Scientists, writers, and anyone who lived in Montreal last summer widely agree that human beings have caused global warming.If we know this, and have known it for some time, then why are we still slipping towards that ugly precipice, the promised scenario in which coral reefs lose their colour and cities sink into the seas?
We have to come to a point where science, culture, and necessity combine to bring us to a tipping point where a social norm is eventually transformed into law. It happened with smoking, when the facts proving its peril became impossible to argue with. It became clear that people-innocent people-would get hurt with noxious fumes circulating around public places, and so lighting up inside changed from being distasteful and rude to actually being outlawed. An evidence brief published by Public Health Law Research last year described the massive public health benefits this change has caused.
Those who care about global warming need to use the same tactics that were used with smoking. Straightforward and reliable progress toward solving or easing environmental degradation will require serious legislation, not the half-assed kind where a government cuts carbon emissions but completely ignores the harmful effects of other pollutants. For effective laws that will help prevent our overheating of the Earth we will need legislation that will, to be blunt, screw us over in some way. No rosy bill will make it all better again. We cannot have both a fun, friendly earth for our kids’ kids as well as that fun, friendly trip to Europe. One law that is possibly needed would make it illegal to sell or buy the cheaper, more destructive lightbulbs. Cops could fine idling vehicles more than speeding ones. Perhaps serious recyclers should get tax breaks.
Canada’s major parties are both adamant that no compromise needs to be made between economic growth and environmental sustainability. Though investment in green energy might prove them right, I fear it’s too late to ignore the stark reality described by the NDP: “Canadians cannot afford to let economic and financial crises become reasons for inaction on global warming, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental imperatives.”
“Cannot afford” is an apt choice of words, suggesting a danger beyond the merely financial. It is difficult for an individual to know what he or she alone can do. Refusing to vote for a party without a serious environmental strategy is a good place to start.
