Taking the longer view of the world
Who now has a long-term view? The business pages gloat over firms having a good quarter — a mere three months. The Church once had a longer view, building edifices to last centuries, but lately even it seems to be in a hurry, canonizing Pope John Paul II before his grave has barely grassed over. Municipal governments spill a lot of ink on strategic plans that seem to be out of date in less than five years. If you ask Canadians what they would like the country to look like in 20, 50 or100 years, you get a blank stare. It’s not on the agenda.
Perhaps my problem is one of bad karma, something I have in spades. I worked in the forest industry, sawing up old-growth forests and lining my pockets in the process. Then I worked as a cabinetmaker and made more money from more dead trees, including tropical ones.
When my wife and I bought some land, we planted 10,000 trees, including 1,700 black walnuts. Friends ask me when the walnut trees will be ready to cut for timber, and I smile at them and say, “in about 80 years,” because they are only 20 years old now. I get another one of those blank stares, perhaps because I am a senior, and another 80 years would make me impossibly old. I will never cut those trees, but a future generation will.
It occurred to me one day that what we all need are better ancestors. A big walnut tree, sawn into lumber at today’s prices, might fetch $6,000. If only my great-grandparents had planted 20 trees per year! Had they done this, which would have taken them an hour each year, half would have survived and I would now have an income of $60,000 per year, forever. It would of course be wise of me to also plant 20 more per year so that my children and theirs never have to work. But this all presupposes a long-term view. The discerning reader will also point out that we have absolutely no control over our ancestors. True, but we do have the ability to control our own actions. We should think about how the future might be.
I have watched with some alarm as the cancerous growth of development on the north shore of Lake Ontario grows ever larger. Is the long-term plan to cover the entire province in concrete and asphalt? No! It is far worse than that: there is no long-term plan at all, just a series of short-term, get-rich-quick schemes. People doing business, feeding their families, cutting down the forests and paving over farmland. It is all quite innocent.
Several years ago I read an analysis of the value of Stanley Park to the city of Vancouver. It took into account how much the park increased the value of other properties, etc., and concluded that the park was worth billions of dollars — as parkland. This is the kind of thinking that has become popular, to put a dollar value on things.
Environmentalists have fallen right into the trap by attempting to show that some natural feature has a monetary value, rather than simply disagreeing with the assessment procedure itself. Money, a short-term entity, is the wrong metric for persistent phenomena. Having a good quarter, return on investment, best use of land and similar phrases are common in business but meaningless in a long-term project.
Walnut trees planted. Return? Nil. In fact, they cost money and were a lot of work. Twenty years later: return on investment? Nil. Any typical, current financial analysis quickly shows that planting walnut trees is a bad move. This, however, does not condemn the planting of walnut trees, but rather shows that financial analysis is simply incapable of taking a long-term view. It is the wrong measure.
The only way to obtain a long-term view is through a consideration not of value, but of values. What matters? This is a big question tied up with ethics, religion and happiness. Collectively, we should answer it. I would start with simple things like clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, and enough food. It would be shocking to find someone who did not think that these matter. Then I would add shelter, for surely a warm, cosy place to live is desirable. I value my health.
As would be expected, other folks will have their own values, but surely there is enough common ground that we can decide how we want the country to be in 100 years. These values naturally lead us to applaud some actions and avoid others. If, for example, we value good healthy food, then it must grow somewhere. Right away, paving over farmland is suspect.
An important consideration as well is the reversibility of a change. Unless technology does something unexpected, extinction of a species is a one-way street. The tired argument that some now extinct frog might have yielded valuable medicines misses the point. It is not the value of the frog to us that is critical, but simply the fact that once extinct we cannot resurrect it. We do not know everything, but driving a frog to extinction reduces diversity and the richness of life. This argument should be sufficient.
I live in the country and recently a vacant house, which was in poor condition, burnt to the ground. Squirrels had earmarked it as a good winter home, chewed through the wiring and a conflagration ensued. The site was cleaned up with a backhoe, with the debris hauled away to a dump somewhere. What interests us here is what is left. The ground did not get very hot. There is no charring and it was winter, so the terrain was snowy. How long until this earth, where the house was, can support the growth of plants again? It will be colonized by weeds over the next few years, but it will be decades until it will become farmland again. Building on farmland or just covering it with parking places is a change that reverses slowly indeed.
Lest the reader believe that this article is about change being bad, it is really about moving in a particular direction in a mindful way. At present it seems that we humans are simply adapting, rather than directing. Do we want the 401 to be 80 lanes wide a 100 years from now? Hopefully, no one would support this. Nevertheless, we continue to add lanes. It is not a plan, just an outcome: we have more cars and more drivers, so obviously we need more lanes. Is it what we want? Does it make us happier?
In Kingston, there are two bridges over the Cataraqui River. A third crossing is thought necessary. What if it were for pedestrians and bicycles only? Not only would it be cheaper to build, it would not require more parking spaces (which are already scarce) downtown, but it would pollute less. It is a move in a direction rather than simply going where we have always gone. We must ask, how would you like it to be?
Alarge part of the problem at present is a belief that government help and approval is needed for everything. When I was a kid local people built an outdoor rink. They did not get planning permission, take out insurance, consider the liability issues, or make sure it was wheelchair accessible. They just got together one Saturday and made it happen. They had gumption.
Today a meeting would be held in which all the stakeholders were consulted. Then a grant would be applied for and the site would have to be approved by some government authority. Thought would have to go into where the water will end up when the whole thing melts in the spring.
It might get built before the warm weather arrives, but that is not the way to bet. This explains why, in part, longterm thinking — dreaming even! — is not occurring.
Simply put, we believe someone else either is doing it or should be. They are not. Governments, typically elected for a few years, are busy putting out fires and patching potholes. We need persistent, enduring organizations to look after long-term visions. Current governments, which are necessarily fly-bynight, lack the motivation, mandate and mechanisms to guide a long-term vision.
The abdicating of our responsibilities to governments and their bureaucracies has bled the gumption from we the people. If we do not form a dream and move toward it, no one will. What we must not do, under any circumstances, is drift along without any long-term thinking. Nor should we imagine that someone else, least of all an elected official, has a persistent vision of the future.
So let’s get started. Perhaps the first step is consciousness raising. Until a subject is being discussed and considered no attention is paid to it.
Ask teachers, developers, politicians, farmers and others you meet how they would like Canada to be in 100 years. If they say they don’t know or don’t care, ask them, “Are you perfectly happy?” Try a shorter time scale to get the conversation started. Try a more restricted geography: “If you had a magic wand, how should this community be in 10 years?”
Challenge the measures being used to define progress by referring to health and happiness as wealth. Extrapolate into the future, as was done above with the example of the 401. How many lanes do we want?
Plant a tree in your front yard and ask your neighbour if they would like one too. A 100-year-old line of trees always reminds me that someone long ago was thinking ahead.
Do something.
When I was a kid, local people built an outdoor rink. They did not get permission … They just got together one Saturday and made it happen