Prime Minister Harper will likely make his decision on the Enbridge Pipeline in June. To prepare for the big day the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is spending big bucks visiting communities through B.C. to generate support.
We’ve had two visits here in the Comox Valley. I attended one of them in Comox along with eight others including one of our elected officials. My purpose for attending was to do my due diligence as a taxpayer.
Every savvy investor knows that before buying into a project he or she should investigate the project thoroughly. This is called “doing your due diligence.” It compares the costs with the benefits and is particularly concerned with the money. As Deep Throat said to Robert Redford playing a reporter investigating the Watergate break-in in the movie All The President’s Men, “Follow the Money.”
The meeting with CAPP was all about money—particularly money in the form of Jobs for the Comox Valley. I was trying to follow the money, but it was impossible.
When CAPP said “Jobs” the magic happened. Most of the participants started talking about how they could use the money in the form of taxes—for schools, health care services, and municipal services.
But there was nothing about the specific number of jobs, the kinds of jobs and salary levels, the length of jobs, the credentials needed to get the jobs, the use of temporary foreign workers, the actual spinoff effects for local businesses, and so forth. CAPP just said “Jobs.” Then they sat back and let the participants do their work for them convincing one another that this was a “good deal.”
In terms of money there was no weighing of the net benefits and costs to the Comox Valley compared to what CAPP, Enbridge and their Multinational investors would get in terms of profits.
There was no discussion about what Comox Valley residents would get for their portion of the whopping $1.4 billion taxpayer dollars the feds were giving to the fossil fuel industry annually in terms tax cuts and subsidies.
Nor was there a discussion about the millions of more taxpayer dollars Mr. Harper and his cabinet were spending as they traipsed around the world promoting the Enbridge Pipeline.
Finally, the CAPP representatives didn’t let the conversation be soiled by discussions about tax-payer costs for spills, public health consequences, increased pollution climate change and its effect upon our Canadian economy. These things are not even in the CAPP Community Tour Playbook.
As I left the meeting I was sad.
I couldn’t help thinking of that $1.4 billions of taxpayer dollars Mr. Harper and company are sending to the fossil fuel industry each year. It is coming back at us to pay for CAPP’s Magical Mystery Tour. They want us to dream in Technicolor and buy a pig in a poke.
Mike Bell
Comox
Brilliantly written, Mike!
t
They all need to get those dire warnings from all those scientists about Climate Change and how BAD it is
Indeed, well said.
I would only add this open-ended, rhetorical question.
Okay, now, what do we do?
Thanks for the comment. The short answer is that we have begin by doing our research. Look up the Anthropocene and the Sixth Extinction on the web to see how critical the situation is.
Then, organize especially at the local level. Get politically involved and work to build resilience into the declining systems. Climate changes is not some mysterious Godzilla that started way out there somewhere on the edge of our universe. It is being created by millions of situations in local communities so we have to build from the bottom up. j.
You might want to view this video and take some advice from Denis Meadows, one of the authors of the 1972 Limits to growth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2oyU0RusiA.. (I can’t seem to get the link to work so you will have to copy iut and post it into your browser.)
This is not an easy answer nor a total answer. We live in a messy world. It seems to me that facing what we are facing we have only two possibilities: 1)to do nothing, or 2) to do something. Trying to do something means that we have to figure out what to do. There is no guidebook for dealing with what we are dealing with. We are in a trial and error situation and, as many of our aboriginal friends tell us “We have to make the path by walking it.”
Mike
Mike, did you or anyone else raise any of these questions and concerns you express so well in this blog, at the meeting you attended? I know it’s difficult to be the lone voice in the wilderness, but in some ways, we are following in the steps of the prophets. I am planning on attending these kinds of meetings, as well as all-candidates meetings as we get closer to the election in 2015, to be that persistent voice that just keeps asking the question: but what about climate change? Why would we invest in the status quo when we know that carbon is taking us nowhere but to a much more unpredictable, insecure and hungry planet?
We need to be preparing, politically, spiritually, communally (and many folks have been, in grassroots organizations/coalitions and among First Nations) for long and sustained political advocacy and nonviolent resistance.
See http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org, http://www.forestethicsadvocacy.ca, http://www.350.org, and ESPECIALLY: http://www.defendourclimate.ca– for information on upcoming May 10 nationwide day of action, “Defend Our Climate, Defend Our Communities”.
The Harper government and Enbridge are working hard and with focus. They’re committed. We need to work as hard and be even more committed.
Tim
Susan, Thanks for your response.
I did try to raise these issues but I didn’t get anywhere. The meeting was controlled by CAPP and the persons invited (chosen) to attend were more or less hand picked. I have had a lot of experience trying to make some of these points, particularly in regard to the Anthropocene, climate change and the role of fossil fuels. Despite the almost daily comments from scientists in our newspapers about climate change it is an uphill battle convincing people of the how this is affecting our society. .
.
Even those who accept the reality of climate change–including some environmental groups– often believe that it is “something out there that we can’t do anything about.” And since we can’t do anything about it, it is defeatist to keep mentioning it. We are perceive as wasting our time that should be spent doing something positive. So we have a significant job convincing people that everything they think of as “out there” is actually caused by projects in millions of local communities around the world–and we have to fight the issue at the local level. The task is to find resilience in the systems that are declining.
I think it is critical these days trying to understand context so that we can do system triage work–sorting out the essentials from what we have to let go of. People don’t like bad news stories and climate change and what it is doing to our world is the ultimate bad new story. And, of course, dealing with climate change requires a strong spiritual dimension. Your reference to a prophetic calling and voice is well chosen. I like Desmond Tutu’s response to someone who asked if he was optimistic. He said, “(I’m not an optimist; but I’m a prisoner of hope.”
If you are interested in finding out more about this new context of the Anthropocene and climate change for environmentalism you might look up two New Yorker articles of Elizabeth Kolbert and/or read her recently published book The Sixth Extinction (or the reviews) . I’d also recommend the Dark Mountain Manifesto
Dark Mountain Manifesto-link
http://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/
Cheers
Mike
Thanks for the detailed reply. I am familiar with the concepts you raise as well as the Dark Mountain Manifesto- the “doomers”, as some would say…Are you familiar with the work of Joanna Macy? She is an elder and an eco-Buddhist. She believes that people need to face the real possibility that humanity’s journey on this planet is coming to an end, but that in facing it, one can discover new ways of living hopefully. “Active Hope” is how she describes this way of living in right relationship. I think she’s on to something…Read more here:
http://exopermaculture.com/2014/04/02/joanna-macy-on-how-to-prepare-internally-for-whatever-comes-next/
Good day, All. Today, as part of the Caring for All Creation series, we are transitioning into the theme: From Extractivism to a Gift Economy. I find guidance within Joanne Macy’s words here:
“All aspects of our current crisis reflect the same mistake, setting ourselves apart, and using others for our gain. So to heal one aspect helps the others to heal as well. Just find what you love to work on and take joy in that.”
And, those of Ruby Blume: “Our small daily actions toward the things that nourish us have an enormous impact. We have to shake off the trance that tells us this is not so. Now is the time to experiment, maybe fail, but always learn some more. We cannot remake the world in whole, only in part.”
To know one’s land- and waterscape is, to me, the great, small work of our lives. Radically ordinary.
When we come to know it, we begin to fall in love with it.
When we love it, we begin to know how to care for it.
And, when we care for it, we care for all.
Dear Susan And Carmelle,
Thanks for your responses.
Susan, I am familiar with the work of Johanna Macy but I had not read the article you provided the link for. It was great article. Anything that can provide hope in the difficult situation we are facing is significant. I also tracked down the Eco-Buddhist author Johanna referred to, Susan Murphy Roshi, and found an interview with her. http://www.ecobuddhism.org/wisdom/interviews/smr_int1. The thinking of both of these women is in the same stream as the thinking of Thomas Berry. He was a close friend and mentor of mine who referred to things like the coming of the Ecozoic era and the importance of an Earth Jurisprudence.
Carmelle, your quote from Ruby Blume was also helpful. I like the reference to experimentation. It reminded me that while intellectualizing is important, we have to get beyond it and into action. In this confusing world of ours I’m constantly reminded of the words of Lao Tzu: “If you know, but do not do, you do not know.”
Mike