A Commentary by Doug Draper
On the eve of this Earth Day, April 22, 2011, I can’t help but think of some of the people we had in our midst who fought for a healthier environment – people who are no longer with us and who cared deeply about the kind of future we are leaving others if we don’t clean up our act.
The late Niagara environmental activist Sister Margeen Hoffmann was always asking where the vision is
They are people like Margherita Howe and Laura Dodson of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario who, as leaders of a group called Operation Clean in the 1980s, were instrumental in pressing the governments of Canada and the United States to sign agreements to reduce the concentrations of toxic chemicals in the waters and wildlife of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario.
They are people like Lynne Matthews of St. Catharines, who led the fight to close the leaking Glenridge landfill site atop the Niagara Escarpment and have it converted to a sprawling natural park where plaque is displayed in her honour today. And they are people like Gord Harry, a former mayor of Wainfleet who did some great conservation work as a veteran staff member of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority. I’ll never forget the triumphant smile on Gord’s face when he took me on a tour of the Wainfleet Bog area after the NPCA helped acquire these unique lands for public posterity.
There are so many others of course, and you may wish to share their names and accomplishments with us in one of the comment boxes below this story.
One of the other great people I think of is the late Sister Margeen Hoffmann, an activist nun from the Franciscan Order and leader of the Niagara Falls, New York-based Ecumenical Task Force who worked with groups on both sides of the Niagara River on addressing shared environmental challenges. One of the lines from The Bible that she quoted the most was; “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” and I on this Earth Day, we should also be asking ourselves where the vision for the future is.
I crossed paths with Sister Margeen over and over again at meetings and conferences when I was covering environmental issues for a newspaper in this region, the late, great St. Catharines Standard. She used it repeatedly to describe what had happened at Love Canal, where hundreds of young couples unknowingly bought homes and raised families on top or around a dump containing 20,000 tonnes of the most toxic chemicals produced by industry over the past century.
After last years Gulf of Mexico off-shore drilling disaster, swimming in oil
Indeed, all one had to do was walk through the Love Canal area around about 1980, after then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter declared a second federal state of emergency for families to obtain some compensation to flee that bedeviled neighbhourhood for confirmation of that line Sister Margeen so frequently repeated. The people were gone, the houses that used to be their homes were boarded up and, just as strickingly, the weeds and bugs that the herbicides and pesticides that were synthesized from the chemical wastes buried below ground were now taking over the lawns and swirling around the backyard swing sets where children used to play.
Like Sister Margeen said; “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” And where is the vision today? Indeed, why isn’t every day since the first one the world participated in 41 years ago this April, Earth Day instead of (all too often) a Hallmark Card kind of an event designed to make us feel a little warm and fuzzy about Mother Nature every April 22?
Where is the vision, just for starters, when it comes to climate change – when it comes to an earth-wide issue that many thousands of eminent people around the world, including the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chief of Staff, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, said earlier this year may be one of the most serious national security and safety challenges his country and others, including ours, in this world today.
“Glaciers are melting at a faster rate, causing water supplies to diminish. … Rising sea levels could lead to a mass migration and displacement (of people) and other shifts could reduce the arable land needed to feed a growing population (of the world’s people),” said Mullen, who is a decorated military executive in the Unites States saying that for God sake!
Contrast that with Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, who less than a decade ago stated that climate change is “a scientific hypothesis (that) may be a lot of fun for a few scientific and environmental elites in Ottawa, but ordinary Canadians from coast to coast will not put up with what this (Kyoto accord signed by dozens of other nations for reducing greenhouse gases) will do to their economy and lifestyle, when the benefits are negligible.” In a 2004 election, when Harper was running for the PM’s job, he downplayed the climate change issue with the words that “the science is still evolving.”
Based on his government’s actions (or lack of them), there is not much reason to believe Harper’s views on climate change have evolved very much since.
Where is his climate change plan? Where is a national energy plan aimed at reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels, or is it all about protecting the vested interests in the oil sands?
Not that the other major parties have had that much to say on environmental issues, other than offer tax relief to homeowners for having their doors and windows insulated. Aside from Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who was sidelined in this Canadian federal election’s even though her party received about a million votes in the last federal election, where is the leader who has a program aimed at doing everything possible to move to alternative sources of energy so we can shut down the God-awful tar sands?
It was a year ago this April that BP Oil’s Deepwater Horizon drilling station was destroyed in an inferno of fire in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in possibly the worst oil-spilling disaster in history. Yet a year later, oil companies continue to get licences in the United States and Canada to drill in deep waters offshore and little to nothing has been done by our federal governments to bring in tougher rules and regulations to prevent future disasters of this kind. In the U.S. alone, the oil industry has invested more than $140 million since the BP catastrophe to successfully lobby federal politicians to allow them to continue with business as usual. A CBC television reporter, sent down to the shores of Louisianna, showed stark images on the tube this April 20 of shore areas still coated with oily goo. He also showed the lot of a shoreline business, loaded with SUVs and pick-up tracks rather than energy-efficient cars – a testiment to a continued collective addiction to big oil-guzzling vehicles that chooses to ignore or deny the consequences for today and tomorrow.
Sadly, recent polls in both the U.S. and Canada suggest that a majority of us are willing to put the environmental consequences on a back shelf to go on feeding that addition in the short term. Again, where is the vision?
I would be remiss to say that there are good people in our local communities doing what they can for a healthier environment. I think of the ramped up curbside recycling program Niagara, Ontario’s regional government recently launched and the recent courage the region’s council showed recently to join Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn and his council in saying ‘no’ to a bid by, of all bodies, the province’s Ministry of Natural Resrouces, to reduce boundaries for protecting what is left of the natural resources in the Fonthill Kame.
There are not-for-profit groups like the Sierra Club, Buffalo Audoban, Riverkeepers and Great Lakes United, based in the Buffalo, N.Y. area, and Niagara Field Naturalists, the Niagara Land Trust, the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society and other nature and conservation groups. This is all good and gives reason for all of us to hope that bunch of little steps around this great big globe may make a difference. But those issues we face like climate change and energy use are so huge, they cry out for national and international leadership.
On this Earth Day, where are the national and international leaders with vision?
(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
Q: “On this Earth Day, where are the national and international leaders with vision?” …Today, one visionary and civil society representative -Mr. John Keenan- had to literally CHASE an elected leader -the mayor of Fort Erie- around town hall because the mayor -“His Worship”- refused to be served court papers (true story). A: THEY’RE RUNNING FROM THE PEOPLE.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=70017862860&topic=16255
http://www.crystalbeachstrand.com/EDITORIAL.html
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70017862860
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Excellent article. Sadly, we still have groups opposed to wind turbines in the Niagara Peninsula. Despite the yearly fatalities related to coal, the catastrophe in Japan, anthropogenic climate change and all its consequences, people in North America still don’t accept the peril that we’re courting as well as the missed opportunities. And Elizabeth May wasn’t even invited to the national debates. Shame.
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Eric, that is hilarious about our Mayor Martin, he is a Conservative and 30 year member of the Chamber of Commerce, as for where are our leaders on the environment? the answer is,” missing in action.”
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The biggest problem is the prognostications of climate change have not occurred. No islands swallowed up by rising oceans and in the words of Dr. Phil Jones, the Climatologist at the centre of the leaked Climategate tapes any temperature increases are “statistically insignificant” . If you overstate the case or are wrong you will not convince people to radically change their lives.
The IPCC reports are so riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies that it’s difficult to take that UN body seriously at all.
Walk into any Tim Hortons in Canada and proclaim we need to immediately implement a carbon tax, ergo another tax on already high gas prices and you’ll be laughed out of the place. That’s reality.
Happy Easter everybody.
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Actually, it’s happening faster than thought. The Arctic is experiencing tremendous changes, as well as the antarctic, and on and on. Personally, I don’t give a s*** what they think about Climate Change at the local Tim Horton’s. They’re probably more concerned about what will happen when their Heninges benefits run out.
I do give a s*** about what the qualified, peer-reviewed scientists say, and they’re all saying the same thing about Climate Change. So are the military generals.
The Petro lobby is VERY powerful, unfortunately.
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Mr. Levick,
The mention of Dr. Phil Jones does not support your contention. Please refer to an article by James Hoggan (March 30, 2010),” Climate Scientist Phil Jones Exonerated by British House Of Commons.”
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Phil Jones was given a pass on his malfeasance. Russell Muir et al whitewashed the findings, but what is worse is the contention that anybody who actually opposes the theory of AGW must be in the pockets of big oil. We all know the stuff about the Koch Brothers as the cornerstone of anti AGW propaganda is well established. The truth is billions of dollars are spent propagating the theory by governments, NOG’s and environmental groups.
Sure there are concerns with the Arctic just have there have been in the past, but the question remains: is this a naturally occurring cycle such as the Medieval Warm Period or is this caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere or potentially a combination of the two?
Considering the efforts that have been made to expunge or at least minimize the historical account of the MWP because it doesn’t fit the current belief that CO2 is the driver for changes in climate is fundamentally problematic.
I don’t pretend to have answers but I am keeping an open mind as to what are the causes of changing weather/climate patterns and what if anything can we do about it.
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Footnote- to Phil Jones and CRU investigation. A good analogy is the Gomery Inquiry. Jean Chretien was exonerated but most people in Canada know he was guilty as sin for ADSCAM.
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Let’s set politics aside for the moment. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a scientific fact. There’s nothing to argue about.
A cold, wet April in the Niagara Region is a localized weather issue, nothing more.
Given the fact of AGW, we also have facts of the Arctic ice opening up, melting permafrost issues, increased methane gas releases etc. which make Climate matters worse.
The consequences are endless, and they involve receding glaciers, lack of water that previously came from those glaciers, drought stricken nations, climate generated wars. Gwynne Dyer wrote a book, Climate Wars,which deals with all of the potential climate-induced situations that Generals throughout this dangerous world are currently contemplating. They have to plan in advance, and they do not reject the science.
We have choices: we can accept or reject the science. We can create policies founded on good science, or we can ignore the science and go blindly on our way. The science is neutral, not debatable.
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The science is flawed or more significantly not clearly established. Politics and climate change have become interwoven so much so that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the two.
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I don’t really care if climate change is human caused. Nor am I concerned about the IPCC, the ‘hockey-stick’ graph, or the politics of climate change. What I can’t understand is why people get so wrapped up in that debate while there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of toxins, dioxins, and chemicals that are known to harm organic matter. Even if climate change was brewed up as a great conspiracy against the North American oil industry, cannot we all agree that reducing the output of green-house gases is a positive trend when they are known to harm flora and fauna?
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greenparty.ca
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Acid Rain is a reality, many northern lakes have no fish in them, the Province introduced limestone to buffer the waters and change the acidity, it is getting better, because Nanticoke the largest acid rain polluter is changing to gas, from the old coal burning fuels, The UK just had its hottest spring on record, with all their beaches flooded with swimmers, this last week the States are on track for breaking a record for the most tornados in history.
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Freidman uses the term “Global Weirdings” to describe Global Warming effects: increased frequency and severity of storms etc.
Some places heat faster than others. The Arctic with its Ice-Albedo effect warms up at a faster rate. The last decade was the warmest on record in the Arctic. Small temp increases can have huge impacts in terms of ice coverage, sea coverage, and then feedbacks. Sea water absorbs heat more than ice, making a powerful feedback from a seemingly small temperature change.
Mulroney did try to make positive changes regarding Acid Rain. Curious that his Conservative counterpart, PM Harper, has little respect for the monumental environmental crises that we are now facing.
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Where are our leaders? Good question.
The line I get concerned about is that ‘we can’t do anything without baseline stats’. Let’s all write another white paper.
No mention of the numerous ‘white’ papers shelved. In the meantime, without full indication of need, we’ll sponsor jobs by constructing another superhighway, put a walmart outside of municipal areas, construct roads wider than needed (and be surprised when so many non-native species topple)… and we’ll be surprised when fuel prices soar and the urban sprawl related jobs fold. Like our manufacturing, we have to go off-shore for news.
As for local environmentalists, we’re dancing our feet off supplying info and services without adequate staff or funds.
Re politics: Two points.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
When you sell the store, you stop generating income.
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