If We Don't Heed Them Now, We're SCREWED!

Parliament may have declared we're in a state of climate emergency but, lamentably, there's precious little evidence that they mean it. Canada remains bitumen country, pipeline country, and bugger the consequences.

There was another climate crisis declaration today, this one from 11,000 scientists from multiple disciplines only their warning, unlike our government's, is deadly serious.

“We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” it states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems.” 

There is no time to lose, the scientists say: “The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.” 

The statement is published in the journal BioScience on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference, which was held in Geneva in 1979. The statement was a collaboration of dozens of scientists and endorsed by further 11,000 from 153 nations. The scientists say the urgent changes needed include ending population growth, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, halting forest destruction and slashing meat eating.

The declaration offers a list of actions we must implement now.  (Hint: none of them involve building pipelines, flooding world markets with high-carbon fossil sludge or continuing massive subsidies of fossil energy giants.) They list critical actions required now:

Use energy far more efficiently and apply strong carbon taxes to cut fossil fuel use

Stabilise global population – currently growing by 200,000 people a day – using ethical approaches such as longer education for girls

End the destruction of nature and restore forests and mangroves to absorb CO2

Eat mostly plants and less meat, and reduce food waste

Shift economic goals away from GDP growth

What the scientists are calling for is abandonment of 18th century economics, 19th century industrialism and 20th century capitalism, modes of organization that outlived their usefulness to humanity by the 1980s if not earlier. What science is telling us is that we must find something to replace capitalism itself.

It is generally accepted that without perpetual growth in GDP, capitalism fails and the world economy collapses. Most who take that view can envision nothing beyond capitalism. Tracing back to the 17th century, well prior to the Industrial Revolution (which, ironically would not have occurred without it), capitalism is all we have ever known. We were born into it. Out great, great, great grandparents were born into it. Capitalism is us. Our governments are built on it, so too our cities and neighbourhoods.

Where consensus breaks down is on whether there is organized life after capitalism. The debate often comes down to whether a zero-growth or steady-state economy is even possible. Some see it as triggering inevitable collapse. I can give you a list of economists who see a no-growth model as not only feasible but essential to our continuation. You might find this op-ed, Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it? helpful.

What we need to find are leaders of the calibre to implement radical change but where in hell are they? We don't have leaders of that stature here and I'm not referring just to people like Harper and Scheer or Kenney, Moe and Ford. I'm talking also about the current prime minister and his front bench.

Lofty goals to be achieved by someone else, some other government, by 2030 or 2050, are no longer relevant. The past has shown they were nothing but aspirational lies, another term for wishful thinking, anyway.