Put your money where your mouth is

Jesse Beach, Volunteer Staff

The time has come to steal from the rich and give to the poor. At least that’s what environmentalists are advocating this week. A recent report on climate change, called the Greenhouse Development Rights framework, presents an equation that allocates responsibility by nation for emissions of greenhouse gases. This unique and rather complicated equation — one that a mere English major could not quite understand — assigns a specific dollar amount that each nation is to be held accountable for in the struggle to reverse human-influenced climate change. The environment (and specifically climate change) has been a hot-button topic in recent years, ousting health care for the No. 1 concern among Canadians, according to a recent TNS Canadian Facts survey. However, the immense concern the world has over global warming is much like any fashion or mode of expression — it’s a fad — it’s a doomed trend which became quite popular very quickly, but will eventually die off in a dramatic and relieving way.

These concerns about the environment, once a non-issue, have been progressively gaining steam since the Kyoto conference in 1997. Terrifyingly official-sounding terms such as “greenhouse gases,” “global warming,” and “climate change” began to infiltrate the thoughts of people around the world shortly thereafter. Motivated by a sense of duty to future generations, genuine concern over the planet itself, or by pure, blinding fear, 172 nations ratified the Kyoto protocol, including Canada. A notable omission amongst those environmentally friendly nations was the United States, who, as the largest expeller of greenhouse gases, stated that meeting the strict requirements of the Kyoto Accords would be equivalent to economic suicide. More recently, the current Conservative government, in defiance of the former Liberal government that ratified the Kyoto Accords in 2002, has also stated that Canada will now be unable to return their greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2012, when the Kyoto protocols expire.

It is not merely Canada who is now balking over the strict Kyoto protocols, however; it is a trend that’s being seen all over the world. Nations currently held in terror of melting icecaps, famine, and worldwide chaos, have failed to change, let alone even maintain, their greenhouse gas emission levels.

Is this lack of action due to economic futility, as the United States claims? Or is the real problem that the once-popular trend has begun its spectacular fallout? One could blame the international community’s lack of action on our generation’s short attention span. An entire generation weaned on television programs and newspaper articles is ill-equipped to dedicate the amount of time and energy to produce change on a global scale. Major concerns, after all, should be introduced and resolved within the expanse of a 22-minute sitcom or not at all.

But really — in all honest and completely pessimistic, glass-is-half-empty truth — environmentalism and the concern over global warming is temporary. It was a nice thought, something that will define our generation for years to come, they will call us “the ones who cared,” but it already shows signs of curtailing. The aforementioned report is evidence of the regressing belief that we can make a difference.

Ten years ago, the United States government refused to sign the Kyoto Accords because they viewed it as economic suicide. Now, however, after a 16 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions, we are expecting the U.S. to contribute an annual sum of $214 billion?

On the surface, the Greenhouse Development Rights framework seems entirely plausible and brutally fair, holding nations that grew rich from expelling copious amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere fiscally responsible. Yet it is actually the first sign that the environmentalist trend is fading. The report, as was previously mentioned, divides up responsibility for human-induced climate change, assigning a dollar amount to each nation that they are expected to annually contribute to combat global warming. The United States, quite obviously the largest contributor, would be responsible for 35 per cent of the bill, translating to $214 billion per year, or $796 per person above the poverty line. Admittedly, this seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, taking into account current wealth and former actions to combat a global problem. Unfortunately, this kind of conclusion makes a scientific report sound like the typical Miss America speech: “If I were Miss America, I would try to end world hunger, if every person contributed just a little bit of food each day, there would be enough for everyone” — thought-provoking, if not entirely plausible.

It is this aspect of the report that marks the beginning of the end for the widespread concern over global climate change. The issue of global warming grew so fast and so broadly because it was such a scientifically credible notion. The movement’s regression to the delusional straw-grasping that makes up this report is ludicrous at best, and the fact that the leaders of this movement have been reduced to such elementary tactics of “If you broke it, then you have to fix it” signals that there is very little steam left in the environmental steam boat.

Ten years ago, the United States government refused to sign the Kyoto Accords because they viewed it as economic suicide. Now, however, after a 16 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions, we are expecting the U.S. to contribute an annual sum of $214 billion? The report is aimed directly at a meeting of the United Nations’ environment ministers next month on the Indonesian island of Bali. At this meeting, environmentalists hope to open urgent talks on a new global climate protocol to replace the Kyoto Accords that expire in 2012. However, armed with this report, environmentalists will be handed down another harsh rejection from the American and, in all likelihood, Canadian governments, hastening the fall of their already dying trend.

Jesse Beach is a fourth-year English student.