Can We Save The World??

In recent days the environment and specifically the Kyoto accord has been in the news a lot. Our new Liberal leader Stephane Dion is going to make it an issue, the main issue in a possible upcoming federal election this year.

There have been surveys that say the general population is making the environment a more important issue than health care in Canada. I beg to differ. From my point of view, health care is and should be the number one issue facing everyone in this country. When waiting lists for everything from chemo treatments, heart surgery, cancer surgery, hip and knee replacements rob us of either our life or quality of life, then "Houston, we have a problem". Sorry, tree huggers.

Now, that is not to say that I don't care about the environment, in fact I care very much. I live in a city where recycling and composting has been rammed down our throats and I do it willingly. That is homeowners do it, apartment dwellers still don't bother very much as a rule. My backyard has two composters, we separate our garbage into recycling, composting and normal garbage. I have one garbage can every two weeks and four recycling bins every two weeks, so you can see I am diligent. My view though is that it's all for nothing really. It's a small drop in a huge bucket.

Until countries like China, India, Pakistan, Russia and most of the other third world countries care about the planet, we are in fact doomed. When China and India are more concerned about churning out cheap products for us westerners to buy with a care to what their industrialization is doing, we are all really lost. When population growth is allowed to go unchecked in these countries (with exception of China, which has a one child rule), the earth will become unsustainable over time. How much, time? I haven't a clue, but I know that it will happen.

But buying credits from those countries for billions of our hard earned dollars is not going to solve the problem. It will not reduce our reliance on fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. We are a cold country and a large country and everyone just about drives where they need to go. Were Government to restrict the number of vehicles one could buy over a lifetime, or the number of trips we could take, or where we should live (close to urban centers) would be allow ourselves to be dictated to in such a manner? Maybe Canada is too large to be populated so sparsely? All those people living in the north in villages of two or three hundred people, who expect all the same services of a urban centre should move. Bit radical isn't it.

Of course I am not a studied person and don't have a solution to the world's problems, but for me personally I am not buying "made in china". In fact I am on a "no buying kick", (except for wool) for the next year. The only other exceptions are things that my elderly mother needs to make her last years comfortable. I know it's not much, but it's all I can do, and really, health care is my number one issue. Back to the knitting...