Going green a challenging road

Lookit. I don't doubt we need environmental action, quick. The Tories' more sensible Clean Air Act seems more likely to come true than any Kyoto derivative.

Do I believe there is global warming? Yes.

Is it entirely due to greenhouse gas emissions and other toxins? Not likely.

After all, there was a warm period 1,000 years ago that facilitated the Viking settlement of eastern-most North America and the agricultural revolution that led to Northern Europe's economic supremacy on the continent. We've had a mini ice-age since then - ending, some say, in the last century.

That said, we are in a climate crisis. There is no doubt greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the climate, endangering some parts of the globe more immediately than others. To add more urgency, there have been rapid climate changes due to natural phenomena such as volcano eruptions. Just think of the Year without a Summer in 1816. Likely caused by a volcano eruption in Indonesia in 1815, it provided great sunsets some say, but also resulted in terrible crop failures in the Maritimes, New England and Europe. In North America, it is believed to have helped push the population farther west at a faster rate. In Europe, it's said to have kept Mary Shelley indoors so she could write Frankenstein; and, because of the oats crop failure, it led to research into non-animal transportation methods - cycling and the like.

The effects were certainly felt here in Kings County: biologist Dr. Merritt Gibson once noted, at the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians in 1755, the weather would have been more like December now than October then; Dr. Sherman Blakney has noted there are once-elaborate Acadian dyke works now under water off Grand Pre. At Louisbourg, the water is about a metre higher than it was in the mid-1700s, the heyday of the French fortress. We don't need a couple of polar bears to come swimming up the Cornwallis to get the message.

The issue is how much, and what, are we willing to do? Regardless of what good feelings the Kyoto Accord produced, no way could we afford to reduce our greenhouse emissions to 5.2 per cent less than the 1990 baseline level by 2012 - and still maintain a viable and competitive economy.

The accord makes great allowances to “developing� countries like India and China, while providing a mechanism where we - the “developed� countries - can buy credits from lesser polluting economies. Our current North American society and economy are centuries old; those of China and India are measured in millennia - so who's “developed� or “developing?� Anyone thinking we're violating any international obligations should be quickly reminded we're losing the lives of good young people in the UN/ NATO effort to help Afghanistan into the modern era. Don't get me going.

Folks in Quebec and British Columbia are said to be big fans of Kyoto. Maybe, but they are also, no doubt, bigger fans of the benefits of a prosperous economy.

The Liberals couldn't get close to compliance when they held the reins of power, even if interim leader Bill Graham says the Tory plan is a national disgrace. The NDP concedes the George Bush Republicans have done better in the United States, not even a signatory.

So, the Tories plan to develop new regulations for vehicle emission by 2011, with harmonization with the American EPA within a year; set national smog control and ozone targets by 2025 and cut greenhouse gas by between 45 and 65 per cent of 2003 levels by 2050. Industrial compliance will be mandatory. There will be an environmental damages fund of fines for non-compliance. There will be coordination with the provinces to avoid wasteful and expensive regulations duplication.

Figures and methods are scarce in the plan, but it's more than a nod to the urgent need for environmental effort through emissions reductions and another to our urgent need for economic development. It's doable.

Business has to be on board, and maybe leading the charge for clean technology and methodology. Like it or lump it, we need to develop Alberta's fossil fuel resources - and Nova Scotia's, for that matter. We need our own heavy industry for the jobs and security. Let's not forget power companies - including our very own Emera - featured among the top polluters in a recent report. There has to be clean-energy technology, but there also has to be a realistic timeframe for technological change.

Meanwhile, whether misplaced or not, opposition to the new plan will at least have given the Green Party of Canada an opportunity to shine. It put Elizabeth May out front - again. Nobody can claim not to know who she is. Kings-Hants MP Scott Brison, the Liberal environment critic, has come up with some good ideas as part of his leadership bid, whether he makes it or not. A businessperson, he also knows the importance of business. Hopefully, he understands the need for heavy industry - but clean heavy industry - and can get everyone else on that wavelength. He also knows there is money in environmentally-friendly technology and methodology.

Through all the insults and put downs the debate is likely to raise over the coming weeks, the matter remains: it is an economic issue, which means it's a social issue.