Earth Day cleanups are just the tip of the iceberg

Another Earth Day has come and gone, and we engaged in the usual cosmetic work of cleaning up our immediate surroundings.

Some towns provided garbage bags, and encouraged the public to make the town look tidier. As happens every year, we all felt that we were doing something meaningful and planet-friendly.

And so we were. Even if we made only small improvements to our environment, we have every right to feel good about it.

Our efforts, though helpful, tend to produce ‘microchanges’, while necessary ‘macro-changes’ can only be made by government and industry.

Our own Canadian government is still trying to control the volume of plastic that has found its way into our natural environment, and that’s a good first step, but the petrochemical problem is much more complex than that. Any source of excess carbon must be controlled, and as far as possible, shut down.

For many of us, plastic waste is merely an eye-sore, a problem for the garbage collectors, a matter of community pride. The rising level of carbon in our environment poses a greater threat, and requires a greater commitment of effort and financing. I’m not sure that we’ll be willing to devote the necessary resources to succeed in this planetary rescue effort.

So many drivers are apparently unable to wean themselves off fossil fuel, and so many governments are content to offer symbolic, token efforts. If we are to make the societal and industrial changes necessary to secure the future viability of our planet, we must make substantive and lasting alterations. It’s not just manufacturers who need to be persuaded, but many of our politicians still can’t find the courage to make the needed reforms happen.

Unless the electorate demands change, change will not occur.

Education is the most obvious

spnredad way to information about the problem, but just how committed to planetfriendly education are the schools? And how long does it take for green ideas in the classroom to migrate to corporate boardrooms, (passing, it must be noted, across the accountant’s desk), and from there to the ‘shop floor’ and the assembly line?

One of the major contributors to global warming is the use of fossil fuels, but the vast profits from fossil fuel production and refining are very attractive to industry. I hope they don’t find it more attractive than the lives of our great-grandchildren?

Any meaningful change must come more quickly than most industrial innovations, but if the will is not there, foot-dragging will seal the fate of future generations. I’m sure nobody would deliberately obstruct the progress of green initiatives, but as we already know, corporate and legislative bodies prefer to move as slowly as possible.

Sadly, we do not have that luxury. Somebody must find a way to increase the efficiency of automotive and petrochemical decision-making, and the response time of government departments.

I don’t know who has the power to ‘goose’ corporate and legislative bodies, but the time-frame is shrinking fast, and the danger to our planet increases daily. I wonder if some of those politicians who have the resources to wage war could be persuaded to do something in the interests of human survival? I wonder if some of those corporate ‘movers and shakers’ might move their shiny rear ends and give their corporate priorities a shake-up?

Governments respond to the demands of voters, and industry responds to consumer demand. A government that fails to act on the climate crisis can be voted out of office, but the corporate world is more self-protective. How many of us, in reality, would stop buying gasoline or diesel fuel, if that was our only way forward?

If the powerful people in government and industry can’t collaborate on such a beneficial project as human survival, then the rest of us may as well forget our garbage clean-ups and nature walks. I suspect the time will come when we’ll wish there had been more Greta Thunbergs, and that they’d been much more ‘troublesome’ than they are currently judged to be. I’m beginning to accept as a real prospect that violent insurrection may be necessary to convince industry and government just how serious the situation really is. Revolutions have been fought to solve less pressing problems than global survival, but I sincerely hope that we won’t need to take such drastic action!

Ed Healy Marystown