FIGHTING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT -- A LOSER?

                   
      The fight to preserve and protect the environment is unquestionably a noble cause, and a great credit to the people who actively conduct it. The campaign is up against powerful, greedy and irresponsible  forces. It therefore requires much individual and organizational exertion from its adherents.
      As an old saying goes, "There's money in muck" -- and the realization of that truth is no doubt one of the numerous reasons there is an environmental movement.
      It has to be acknowledged that a good many corporations and industry groups spend mega-millions to persuade the public that they, the corporations, do their utmost to keep the environment clean, that they're Good Guys, on the side of the people, helping the economy and providing thousands and thousands of jobs, and so on.
     Our profit-oriented news sources and outlets devote quite a lot of attention and space to environmental coverage, and that's fine, as far as it goes. In Canada, unfortunately, such publicity seems to be having little effect on the national government under the control of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his big-business-adoring Conservatives.
      I keep a reasonably close eye on developments in the environmental field, and I see little encouraging news for those groups active in the "save the planet" crusade, groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

                              EVIDENCE OF NEGLECT
      Earlier this month, environment-conscious Canadians received depressing news, in the form of a report and comments by Scott Vaughan, federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
      Mr. Vaughan indicated that Canada is not doing its bit for the environment, and said it is unlikely Canada will meet its previously-agreed obligations in the fight against carbon emissions and global warming. In one particular, the commissioner noted that the federal government has been slow to act in controlling emissions from the transportation industry. It is important to observe that he was not delivering a political judgement, but a factual one, because he is a non-partisan public servant.
      The Harperites might suggest that they are not necessarily bound by agreements made by previous governments -- suggesting in effect that turning back the clock on progress is okay.
       This is something that I suppose one might expect from Harper -- an MP from the oil province of Alberta, whose vast reserves are under mostly foreign control. Including the Athabasca Tar Sands. China has a large ownership presence in that massive energy development, and it is a nation not especially known for commitment to environmental protection. Several other nations, including the U.S.A. and  Britain, also are major "players" in the tar sands regions of Alberta.
                         
                             SAVE THE PLANET?   
      Permit me to pause here to take exception to the widespread use of that phrase. It seems to me that "save the planet" overstates the case.
      I note this on grounds that the slogan doesn't quite mean what it says: the planet, scientists assure us, is going to be around for another four or five billion years at least, no matter what sort of trials it may have to endure.
      Sure, it's true that the slogan is used with a kind of poetic license to highlight the idea that we want the planet to be livable for humans, and no doubt for other animal life as well.
      But, might not something like "save the planet for life" say it better?

                              SO, IS THE WORLD INTERESTED?
      Unfortunately, I think there's reason to question whether the world as a whole is, in fact, much interested in environmental protection, and recent evidence tends to support that view.  Asia, we often hear, has a very long way to go before it comes anywhere near so-called "western" standards. And then, as if to illustrate the internationality of the environment, there was the news headline from earlier this month:
     "Problem of floating plastics worsens."
      It seems tiny particles of plastic occupy a huge region of the North Pacific ocean in the millions, perhaps even billions, and the amount has grown 100-fold over the past 40 or so years. Agence France-Press has reported that the plastics are mixed in with all kinds of toxic chemicals ("heavy" with toxic chemicals, their report said), including, one might reasonably expect, those of the corrosive kind emitted by uncontrolled mineral, and other, emissions from land. This, of course, is very bad for fish, and very bad for humans who eat fish.
      The blame for this evidence of governmental failure to protect international waters from plastic pollution cannot, of course, be dumped on current governments alone, since the evil goes back many years. That, of course, is no excuse for inaction today.
      By the way, since we're on plastics, what ever happened to the alleged campaign against plastic grocery bags? Nothing that I've seen -- and the situation, it seems to me, is being made even worse by those supermarkets that use automatic checkout technology. Not much sign of "let's get rid of plastic bags" in that, is there?
 
                              GET IT TOGETHER, NATIONS
      As we have seen, Canada still does have much to do in environmental protection (Tar Sands, anyone?), but the wider world is in a similar and, in too many places, a much worse situation.
      Reuters news agency only recently reported that evidence has come to the fore about some quirky things going on in the plant world, with plants just about everywhere flowering faster than earlier predicted, as a result of global warming.
      Canada, by the way, is a considerable contributor to the global warming phenomenon, because our nation is, though not too many Canadians seem aware of this, very definitely a member of the world's group of "petro-powers" (or carbon-spewers), and is right up there with the likes of Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC nations. (The real and potential Tar Sands reserves range as high as Saudi Arabia's at around 175 billion barrels, but the comparison is not terribly exact, since Saudi oil is pretty clean and relatively inexpensive to extract, while the Tar Sands oil is very dirty and requires immense quantities of water in necessary cleaning processes.)

                              AND WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?
      We know that environmental protection has been occupying many minds for many years, in places high and low (perhaps excepting Harper's Ottawa). As a consequence, laws and rules on environmental protection have been enacted by plenty of countries, to the extent that one has to feel that few nations, if any, lack a Department of the Environment. How actively they enforce such laws, of course, is a very relevant question.
      At any rate, here we are today -- still facing major environmental problems, constantly in controversy over to allow or not allow such things as oil pipelines (like the proposed, massive Enbridge $5.5 billion Tar Sands-crude pipeline to the west coast), and whether to okay or not okay wide varieties of other projects that present major environmental concerns.
      Since all these matters require huge sums of money to bring about, they are usually put forward by gigantic private economic interests. More often than not, the large economic interests cultivate political connections, they actively lobby in the halls and offices of power -- and to the surprise of few, choose to support the conservative political philosophies that tend to be more sympathetic to big money than to democracy.
      In such circumstances, I'm afraid, the environment must be the loser.
                                                                 ---------------

      UPDATE:  On May 23, 2012, the city of Los Angeles instituted a plan to eliminate -- gradually,  over a period of a year -- plastic bags used for packing customer grocery bags at supermarkets. Environmental activists, supported by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, are credited with leading the movement to rid landfills, waterways and oceans of the plastic pollutants. So, progress can happen toward protecting the environment. However, one city at a time, even a huge one like L.A., is not good enough -- the world still need firmer, more aggressive action at the national and international levels.
                                                                 ---------------