Just as I was starting to panic and think that I would have nothing to write about for my next blog, Mr. Harper came through for me in his most recent decision to attend the Copenhagen climate change meeting. Not that I think he shouldn’t attend it, I do – but the fact that he wasn’t going to attend until Obama decided to reminds me of high school, or maybe even junior high. Now I understand that rubbing elbows with Obama is probably a big thrill, one I would enjoy too, but seeing as Alberta alone emits more pollution than some small countries, I think Mr. Harper should have been attending regardless of what his US counterpart was doing that day – because it is the right thing to do, not the popular thing.

Like many of us years ago, I watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. However, unlike many of you, I made the mistake of watching The Day After Tomorrow right after it. The combination of the two scared the hell out of me. If you’ve seen the two films you understand what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, basically The Day After Tomorrow is like if An Inconvenient Truth was a movie and not a documentary: the world goes into another ice age because the North Atlantic current shuts down from melting ice caps and Canada gets wiped out by snow and ice; only the Southern hemisphere is unaffected. Now I know it’s just a movie and everything, but the science is basically true, and to me, that’s freakin’ scary. We’re talking doomsday stuff here, and need I remind anyone that 2012 is right around the corner. I’m not suggesting we base federal policy on the Mayan calendar, nor am I preaching a doomsday is imminent, but if we continue on this path, we will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sure it sells big bucks in the theatres, but I’d like theatres to be around in the next few decades and maybe more after that, I mean, I do have nieces and nephews.

Now I know the environment has never been a popular topic. We all know the negative connotations that go with the term Tree Hugger and we all remember conversations about those crazy environmentalists who shut down the oil plant for a day and got arrested just to prove a point. But just like in high school, it doesn’t always matter what the popular thing to do is, because the popular thing is not always right and when it comes to governing, I prefer what is right over what is popular. Fact of the matter is, our government, current and past, has not done nearly enough when it comes to our environment, which is ludicrous. When your house has a leaky roof, you fix your shingles; I know the ozone layer and global warming are a little more complex than roofing, but when there are solutions out there, it is inexcusable not to utilize them.

I have never been a hardcore environmentalist. I don’t drive a hybrid car, although I would if I could afford one, and I don’t have a very efficient house: it’s a hundred years old and the new windows it needs does not fit into my budget, even with the tax cut. However, I do recycle, I try not to idle my car and I do my very best to keep the lights off and put a sweater on in place of turning up the thermostat. I take advantage of the solutions that are available to me. From what I remember about An Inconvenient Truth, the solutions were not that crazy or far fetched. They were just that, cutting back and making smarter choices. Our government seems incapable of doing either unless Obama does it first – then we are on board. Clearly we are not the world leaders we thought we were, in fact we are not leaders at all, just following Obama’s lead, and to me that is a very inconvenient truth.

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Tags: climate change, Environment, stephen harper

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:06 am and is filed under Environment, Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.