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I look up to Rick Mercer and have a huge amount of respect for him, and I’ve been inspired by many of the rants he’s filmed in this alley. But as someone who cares deeply about climate change, I’d like to respond to his most recent rant framing the Energy East pipeline as not only necessary for our economy, but a linchpin of national unity.
The pipeline debate goes way beyond provincial politics, because here’s the thing: chemistry doesn’t care about politics. Our fossil fuel economy has radically changed the atmosphere, and now the atmosphere is fighting back. And if our economy is at war with the laws of nature, who do you think is gonna win?
Canada doesn’t need a pipeline, what we need is a twenty-first century economy. We can create unimaginably powerful computers that fit in our pockets, so maybe it’s time to innovate our energy system beyond digging up a bunch of crap and setting it on fire.
It’s easy to sneer at climate change deniers as delusional and anti-science, but if you accept climate science but ignore what that science means, you’re a denier too. Scientists say we need to keep most of the oil sands in the ground. And when you deny that fact, you’re denying the millions of poor and vulnerable people whose lives will be destroyed in the coming decades through more crop failure, storms, heat waves and diseases, including malaria.
Reshaping our economy is difficult, but difficult isn’t impossible. And the alternative is morally indefensible.
Rick finished his rant by saying “It is time for provinces to start asking what’s in it for Canada, not just what’s in it for me.” I think it’s time for Canadians to start asking what’s in it for humanity, not just what’s in it for us.
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