Managing to find yet another new low, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the 195-country Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions last week.
The U.S. now sits in good company with Syria and Nicaragua in rejecting the shared goal of mitigating climate change.
But easy as it is now to thumb our noses at the bass-ackwards behaviour of the U.S., we should dispense with our sense of superiority and have a look in the mirror.
Canada’s carbon emissions are about double per capita that of a typical European nation (even those cold countries).
This has much to do with the decisions we make in our homes, vehicles and industry.
It was also Bike to Work Week last week, yet it seemed to be one of the worst weeks in recent memory for traffic jams all over the Lower Mainland.
And despite plenty of asking, it’s still not been explained to our satisfaction how Canada can do its part to reduce carbon output while expanding the tar sands and building pipelines.
And then there’s the new NDP and Green brotherhood right here in British Columbia.
The B.C. NDP promised to remove tolls from Lower Mainland bridges. This will certainly not encourage carpooling or other forms of commuting in the Lower Mainland.
But those are the kinds of Faustian bargains that politicians make, thinking that if they just get elected, they can then do some good works. But, let’s face it, most of us are no better.
We continue to consume new electronics and goods of all sorts with little consideration of what that is doing to our planet.
In time – perhaps after some catastrophic storms or droughts – the United States’ leaders will see the error of their ways and rejoin the global effort to tackle the number 1 threat to our long-term security.
In the meantime, the rest of us are going to have to pick up the slack, because the atmosphere doesn’t care which country the carbon is coming from.
