Inconvenient attitude

I went to the recently released Al Gore movie The Inconvenient Sequel. There were seven people in the theatre. A friend of mine went a few days before. There were three there on that occasion.

I found this amazing as I was expecting a full house with such an important movie being shown. Al Gore has shown us in the past that he is passionate on the subject of global warming and climate change.

In this new movie he is better than ever, and I feel that the message he is pushing should be taken on board by everyone. Climate change is getting a lot of air time world wide lately, with Donald Trump and the Paris accord, and also our own upcoming electins.

I feel totally disappointed with the Nelson citizens. I think it shows a ‘‘couldn’t care less’’ attitude, for something, which is probably the most important event in the world today. should take heart from the experience of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. Since the 1940s, city planners had been designing an expressway system to ring and criss-cross the city and funnel traffic to downtown.

But when it came to building a link (the Spadina expressway) from a major freeway to downtown that would have dstroyed parks, houses and community facilities, public protest ballooned into a mass movement. As in Nelson today, oppoinents of the link were described as ‘‘against progress’’ and ‘‘anti-growth’’.

But media guru Marshall McLuhan caputred the public mood when he said:’’Our planners are 19th century men with a naive faith in an obsolete technology. In an age of software metro planners treat people as hardware – they haven’t the faintest interest in the values of neighbourhoods or community’’.

By 1971, the ‘‘Southern Link’’ had been stopped and no expressways have been built in Toronto since then. Transport development became focused entirely on subways and light rail. Did it stop ‘‘progress’’? Since 1971 Toronto has added three million people to its population. Visitors to the city describe it as ‘‘New York as if it were run by the Swiss’’.