The Living Planet Report

The world is heading for an ecological credit crunch. Human demand on natural capital now far outstrips the Earth’s ability to sustain it. Reading this report has brought me face to face with the likelihood that by the time my own grandchildren see the world, it may bear little resemblance to the one that I grew up in — unless we do something about it, starting now.

As a Canadian, I’m among the world’s most profligate people. Of the more than 150 countries ranked, Canada comes 7th on the size of its ecological footprint per capita, and 12th in its per-person water-consumption. If everyone consumed the resources I do, it would take three Earths to meet the demand.

My granddad would have said that I’ve been living high off the hog, and he’d be right.

The great irony is that he dreamed of my being able to live the life I do. He worked hard and made sacrifices to build what he hoped was a better world for my parents and me. That’s the lesson I think I need to take home today. If I want to look my own grandchildren in the eye, I too need to be in earnest about the choices I make from here on in.

There are a lot of good ideas for reducing my own footprint listed on The Good Life. Some of them I haven’t got around to yet; that’s as good a place as any to start. But I also know that individual efforts can take us only so far.

We have to change our attitudes about collective actions. We have to re-learn how to work together. This means that we need to be very clear in the instructions we give to those who represent us. We need to re-build our belief in government, and our government’s confidence in the permission we have given it to govern. Canada needs to start establishing costs for carbon emission; Canadians need to make their governments understand their willingness to accept these costs.

My grandfather’s era understood this dynamic. In his day, statesmen assembled to decide on monstrous issues like global war and famine; it was understood that people lived and died by their decisions.

Here in our own era — in little more than a year from now — politicians from around the world will gather in Copenhagen and try to negotiate an agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and save the world from global warming. They will bring with them a record of their own emission-policies in each of their home countries. Reading the Living Planet Report, it’s safe to say that Canada’s will not be regarded as a shining example.

We need to fix that, because it’s increasingly clear the stakes are just as high in Copenhagen as they were during the global catastrophes my grandfather lived through. His was a time of war and depression, pandemic and global destruction. As for me, I’d just as soon not head up that particular creek. Not while there’s a whole rack of paddles still within my grasp.

Luckily for me and my descendents, there is. We need only the will to take them in hand and put them to work.

Scott Gardiner