I have just read one entry of Bill Bryson’s splendid book (not for the first time I hasten to add), ‘Notes from a Big Country’ after his and his family’s return to live in America after over twenty years in Britain, entitled ‘The Waste Generation’ and was written on 14th December 1997. I ask you to keep that date in mind along with the fact that I am going to reference the article in some detail in what is to follow. His article largely focused on the wasteful habits of American companies and people, and how much energy could be saved with a bit of planning and thoughtfulness, but I have cherry-picked a few interesting facts and thoughts of his from back then to examine how far we have come since then.
Over the past month Greta Thunberg has travelled extensively for the first time in her short sixteen years through the vastness which is North America trying to rally people behind the not unimportant idea that, what is now commonly known as climate change, is by no small part due to the way we all live our lives, especially those of us in what is called the developed world.
Since Greta started her brave (or pointless, depending on your point of view) lone stand on behalf of us all against the harm she says we are reaping on our finite and precious planet (especially the futures of young people), that climate change needs to be taken extremely seriously. Consequently, many millions have risen behind her in support. The kids have undertaken, and are showing no signs of letting up, a series of climate school strikes to raise the awareness of many more with peaceful marches taking places in many cities all of the world. Not bad for a petite female from the small Scandinavian country of Sweden. Unless you think that she doesn’t know what she is talking about and should be back in school.
The question is will the old, or at least older, people who sit in the seats of power actually listen, in the first instance, and, more importantly, actually do something?
Throughout the western world over the last twenty years the Green Parties in various countries have begun, and I reiterate the word begun, to be taken somewhat seriously without coming remotely close to unseating the traditional support for traditional purveyors of power. Many commentators are of the opinion that humankind sits on a precipice regarding its future, whilst many others call ‘humbug’, or some such, saying the exploitation of fossil fuels must continue apace in order to provide strong economic growth and jobs at all costs.
Which is why I am going to reference Bill Bryson’s article. Remember that date now. In case you have already forgotten it, I will start by reiterating it.
He states that in 1992 at something called the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the United States, along with other developed nations, agreed to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2000. This wasn’t a promise to think about it. It was a promise to do it.
I’ll let that sink in. 1992 promises. Since then we have had the Paris Climate Change Agreement of the 1st April 2016 agreed by the whole world until the United States decided it didn’t like it after all and changed its mind. This was a huge blow to the Agreement as the United States and China together represent almost forty per cent of global emissions.
After the 1992 Earth Summit, Bryson writes that greenhouse emissions continued to rise by 8 per cent, and that there was even a kind of antagonism to the idea of conservation, particularly if there was a cost involved. It would seem that the United States has not been keen on reducing emissions if it might affect the economy, and subsequently jobs, adversely for a long time (even if this may not be true).
We in Canada are currently in the middle of a Federal election to select the next government for the next four years. Three parties, seen to be on what is called the progressive side of politics, have either introduced or supported a charge (a tax) on carbon emissions, whilst one party with opposing political views, has proposed scrapping any such a thing or idea. You will have your own views on who is right. Back when Bryson wrote his column, he says a coalition of industrialists called the Global Climate Information Project had raised $13 million to fight pretty much any initiative that got in the way of their smokestacks.
Now, here in Canada, there has been what seems like a never ending battle for years over what is known as the Trans Mountain pipeline (a twinning of an existing pipeline which has operating since 1953) to allow three times the amount of bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to be transported to the British Columbian coastline so that it can be shipped to countries in the Far East (chiefly China). The present ‘progressive’ government even bought it from the original American company, Kinder Morgan, when the latter got fed-up with the endless time consuming blocks that got in the way of building the thing.
Bryson goes on to say that he didn’t know how worrying global warming (as it was called then) is. No one does. He says that he didn’t know how much we are imperiling our futures by being so singularly casual in our consumption. I wonder whether twenty one years later whether we know more. Greta, and millions of others, seem to think we do. But, if they are right, are we going to do anything about it, and if necessary, pay the cost? Some say yes, some say no, so we shall see I suppose.
21 Oct 2019