Jun 24, 2011
In an opinion piece in the Black Press, Tom Fletcher says “The Green Party is the only one other than the B.C. Liberals that looks to the future. Perhaps too far in the future.”
We Greens have always had a sense that we are 20 years ahead of the curve in terms of recognizing the problems we face and understanding what needs to be done. Daily, if we cared to look, we see evidence that we need to make some fundamental and profound changes now. It is beyond comprehension that we can be informed about climate change and plan to do more of the same activities that got us into trouble in the first place. It is mind boggling that there is a worldwide increase in debt that puts many industrialized countries on the verge of bankruptcy and the major financial institutions around the world preach maintaining our economic folly. It is crazy that Canadians and others from “advanced” countries carry debt that is one and one-half to two times our income and we keep spending.
Willful denial is the only term that possibly describes a culture that seems to be accelerating toward the precipice of planetary destruction with such glee and greed. The politicians from other parties are proponents of business as usual and more of the same kinds of policies. They are cheerleaders for a consumption-and-growth based economy that can only be fuelled by expanding debt and ecosystem destruction.
So when Fletcher comments thats proposing a higher carbon tax and moving to local economies is thinking or planning too far in the future, I’m puzzled. He seems to be acknowledging that society may have to go in this direction at some point but what? Not now? He also says that an economy that “doesn’t try to produce and consume more” would be incapable of eliminating poverty.
This avoids analyzing the reality that today’s economy that produces and consumes as much as it can as fast as it can is responsible for increasing poverty not only in BC but worldwide. A report in the Globe says that there are now 11 million millionaires globally, an increase of 10% since the Great Recession started in 2008. “This tiny percentage of the world’s population controls $42.7-trillion of global resources – $2-trillion more than before the crash in 2008.”
In other words, the current economic system has the consequence of spawning more millionaires, concentrating more of the wealth of the planet in fewer and fewer hands; and leading to greater disparity in wealth. Endemic and intractable poverty is the logical consequence of the existing economic structure. Greens proposal for a local, green economy is, in fact, the only model that provides hope for poverty elimination.
Given the evidence that we are making the planet increasingly uninhabitable, how is it possible to look too far into the future? What Greens propose is recognizing that we need to make those fundamental and radical changes. Having acknowledged the problem, we then need to plan for the changes to take place over the next twenty to fifty to one hundred years.
I don’t comprehend an alternative that could possibly have a good outcome – especially the business as usual one! If we continue down the current path, we will hit a dead end. What then? There will be no time left to plan and no resources preserved with which to make the transition.
Putting a reasonable price on carbon and creating new business opportunities to provide goods and services locally could be an implementable component to take us to a better future. It would mean jobs for our young people and more equal prosperity within and amongst our communities.
Demanding better use of our natural resources and a higher return to the people of BC instead of letting large multinationals make off like bandits is not futuristic, it is common sense. Integrating the precautionary principle into all of our decision-making could make for better choices and a more long-lasting and stable economy.
|
|
Tweet |
|