DO NO HARM

I swear I don't understand environmentalists or people who claim to be - you know all those annoying types who can't eat this or won't do that because it might "harm the environment" or have an affect on "climate change".  People who like to promote guilt in every person who crosses their antiseptic path. Yes, there's one in every crowd...and they're not just annoying, they could be doing more harm than good and, dare I say, contributing to the problem.

I'm not denying that we don't face environmental concerns, or that the climate isn't changing, but I think we need to direct just as much effort to taking care of humans - the people who are here and live on this earth - than advancing sketchy hypothesis about the future.

Let's put human beings first.  With half of the world living in sub-standard conditions, our hearts need to be in the right place, and our brains need to think about the impact that our actions have on others.

The Tar Sands Saga

No one would argue that the Tar Sands are a big dirty blight on the horizon, but they always were - with or without any input from man.  The fact that we have figured out how to extract and use the oil derived from this great tarry pit is not something to be sneered at; the tar sands extraction process if one of the greatest engineering feats in the world and Canada should be praised for perseverance and ingenuity in the face of impossible odds, cynicism and derision. 

Keystone Kops

Following a litany of campaigns and protests as long as the proposed Keystone XL pipeline itself, there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon.  It seems the Americans are closer to a deal, with The State of Nebraska dropping opposition after TransCanada Pipelines re-routed portions of the pipeline. If approved: good news for Canada, enabling us to sell our oil to our closest neighbour.  Good news for the United States, providing a much-needed boost to both jobs and the economy.  Better the oil should go to the U.S., that has environmental protection safeguards in place, than be sold to China who just doesn't care.  The truth is that drivers in North America could park their cars and still choke to death on the combined emissions from China, India and Mexico combined.  Better that we create jobs for thousands of people in North America than buying oil from hostile regions in the Middle East.

Those fighting the pipeline neglect to mention that carbon emissions from coal-fired plants in the United States are 40 times greater than those from the oil sands.  In Illinois, President Obama's home state, coal emissions alone are more than double those produced by the oil sands...but don't tell that to your local tree hugger.

The De Beers Debacle

It seems that First Nations leaders have hopped on their high horse again and are winning the race. This time their beef is with the De Beers Victor Mine, which just happens to be 90 km west of James Bay and the Cree community of Attawapiskat.  You remember Big Chief Theresa Spence who staged a hunger strike to get smaller?  Yes, that Attawapiskat!  Never mind that De Beers spent upwards of $1-billion to create the mine and, before extracting a single diamond, the company negotiated impact benefit agreements with four local Native communities, including Attawapiskat.  Here again, the Mines would serve as a means of income for local natives, but they don't see it that way.  Once again, the Big Bad Whiteman has come forth to stifle Native agendas, spreading havoc across their "land".  Never mind that this land they so cherish has ceased to sustain them. Forget the fact that the promised land is scarred with shacks and garbage, that few residents have jobs or any means of making a living.  Let's just continue to beat our drums and oppose any chance of employment that comes our way.  As long as government money keeps rolling in and the Chiefs are well-fed and coddled, that's all that counts.

$90 million dollars has poured from government coffers into Attawapiskat over the last few years, with nothing to show for it - no improvements to the lives of the people who live there that anyone can see, but the "victim" act continues unabated.

Now militant native protestors from four local families have decided to block access to an ice road built and maintained by De Beers that provides three months of car access to communities that are mere dots on the map otherwise supplied by air.  Their sporadic blockade stretches along the 90 km spur that leads from the main 250 km Moosonee-Attawapiskat ice road into the Victor Mine.

Last year, contracts awarded to the community were over $40-million.  DeBeers currently employs over 60 full-time employees from the local community and over 100 from other First Nations.  As well, the company provides housing units and textbooks for the schools, but five or six disgruntled ex-employees are effectively holding ransom the main employer of 500 people at a cost of millions.  Despite a ruling by a judge in Timmins that there was enough evidence for the Ontario Provincial Police to lay criminal charges again six demonstrators, neither the Chief, Theresa Spence, nor the OPP having done anything to stop the action.  Shades of Caledonia all over again.  Picture yourself blockading a road:  you'd be in jail before you could blink.

Genetically-modified Ideas

This is another subject that has fueled controversary.  Opponents of genetically-modified foods caused a 12-year delay in the production of "golden rice" and over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency.  Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10% at risk for vitamin A deficiency which, according to the World Health Organization causes 1/4 to 1/2 a million children to go blind each year, according to the World Health Organization.  Of these, half die within a year.  The British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that vitamin A definciency kills 668,000 children under the age of five each year.

Everyone from Greenpeace (the biggest objector) to Naomi Klein to the New York Times Magazine are guilty of spurious exaggerations against genetically-modified rice that have been proven to be demonstrably wrong.  According to recent studies published in two scientific journals, just 50 grams of golden rice can provide 60% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A - better than spinach as a primary source.  Golden  rice with vitamin A will now be grown in the Phillipines, eventually spreading to growth in Bangladesh and Indonesia.  Currently, there are 4.4 million Filipino kids with vitamin A deficiency waiting for relief, but for the 8 million children already gone, it comes too late.  Thanks, Greenpeace.  Shame on you!

 Vaccine Victims

Even though the Jenny McCarthy's of the world have been silenced with scientific proof that there is no link between vaccination and autism, there are still parents who refuse to grant permission for yearly flu shots, preferring instead to put their own children at risk and other children with whom they come in contact.  And there is no amount of evidence that will change their mind.  Ever since English physician, Edward Jenner, developed the vaccine to combat smallpox, immunization has saved countless children from
a multitude of diseases such as chicken pox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and polio.  And despite the eradication of these diseases, autism is on the rise.  Or perhaps we've just become better at detecting it.  The cause is still a mystery, but don't tell that to the proponents of wacky theories who pray on vulnerable parents.

When Push Comes to Shove

Very seldom do you hear environmentalists worrying about the impact their initiatives would have on the economy and jobs.  But an economy that is built on and sustained by the automobile can't afford to get caught up in reactionary rhetoric. Just last Friday, the city of Detroit, the birthplace of the U.S. automotive industry, declared a fiscal emergency.  Detroit has seen the steepest popular decline of any major American city in recent decades, with a crushing debt US$14-billion and a current fiscal year budget deficit of US$100 million.

And objectors in Canada shouldn't be so smug. While Ontario and Quebec teeter under the burden of a mountain of debt, Alberta props us up, not just with oil profits, but with its adherence to discipline - the reason it has the lowest taxes in the country.

A new survey of almost 23,000 people in 22 countries including the U.S. and Canada asking how concerned they were about six environmental problems - air pollution, water, pollution, species loss, automobile emissions, fresh water shortage and climate change - fewer people said they now consider them "very serious" than at any other time in the last 20 years since tracking began.  When it comes to a choice between people's belly or belief in dangers that may or not come to pass, the economy and jobs take precedent.  And the worse the economy, the less they worry about the environment and climate change.

Providing jobs or saving the planet?  What's important to you?