Confronting a climate crisis
Tzeporah Berman says we need to change our lifestyles, but governments also need to change laws to curb emissions.
What must be done to persuade people to change their behaviour in order to save the planet?
Lara Honrado
Cofounder, Mango Communications
“I’m trying to make the case for diversity within the environmental movement. I think if the environmental movement doesn’t seriously start to do that, then, at least in Canada, you’re just not going to connect with a lot of diverse Canadians, and that’s too large and important of a group not to engage with.”
Bill Sinclair
B.C. and Alberta regional director, Evergreen
“One thing they can do is go and do something: go out and plant a tree. Hands-on stewardship activity is direct action. A lot of people are feeling as if they are powerless and there’s nothing they can do, but indeed there is. One thing we are doing on Earth Day is planting 4,000 trees down at Jericho [Beach].”
Andrea Morgan
President, Friends of UBC Farm
“I think a lot of people want to rely on things that are bigger than them to bring about change: governments, policymakers, and corporations. But you really have to be proactive to change the world around you. A lot of this begins with educating yourself to alternatives and being open to alternative ways to live.”
Mairi Welman
Deputy exec-director, Recycling Council of B.C.
“Get them to take individual responsibility. It’s quite amazing when I talk to people about environmental issues how often they still say, ”˜They.’ Nothing will change until all of ”˜us’ take responsibility. There are no silver bullets when it comes to the environment. There are lots of little things that we have to do.”
Margaret Mahan
Executive director, Better Environmentally Sound Transportation
“We need regulation, legislation, and general rules that help people make behavioural decisions. So that’s both carrots and sticks. You need the carrots that encourage people to do things—bicycling needs to be easy and safe—and you need the sticks. These are the things that punish ”¦those behaviours that we want to change.”
Outspoken Cortes Island environmental activist Tzeporah Berman can think of at least two things holding our society back as we approach Earth Day on Wednesday (April 22).
“I was thinking the other day that we now have an overdeveloped consumption muscle and an underdeveloped civil-engagement muscle,” Berman told the Georgia Straight by cellphone on April 13. “When I was a kid, we volunteered. My parents were engaged in knocking on doors for political parties and volunteering for community groups, and being a part of a strong community was part of our upbringing.”
Berman, executive director with PowerUP Canada, took part in a day-long PowerUP conference in Vancouver, which was focused on finding solutions to today’s environmental quandaries. Berman said there is still time to avert a full-blown climate crisis, but she added that the window for action is closing.
“There is no question that we need to change our lifestyle,” she said. “But it’s not enough to change our light bulbs; we need to change our laws. The majority of our emissions are coming from industrial sources. The largest projected increase in emissions in Canada is going to come from the tar sands. So I think it’s critical that we all engage with our elected decision makers.”¦We can’t solve global warming alone, but together we have a fighting chance.”
Berman said she believes there is “enormous change afoot”, especially if we look at U.S. president Barack Obama’s environmental policies.
“The Obama administration is committed to a large scale-up of renewable power, to a cap-and-trade program, and initiatives that link strong climate policy to green stimulus and green jobs,” she said. “That’s a huge sign of hope, I think, for all of us. I think that this is the question I am asking: ”˜Are we going to see complementary and similar policies from the Harper government? And are we going to see people in British Columbia in this [May 12 provincial] election vote for the candidates that show some climate leadership?’ ”
UBC community and regional-planning professor Bill Rees, inventor of the “ecological footprint” analysis, told the Straight in a previous interview that he is old enough to remember the importance of homegrown food handpicked from his grandmother’s farm, and he can relate to using resources sparingly.
However, Rees said recently that the postwar period is responsible—largely through the advertising industry—for transforming modern society from “conservers to consumers”.
“We’d come through the rationing of the Second [World] War and the Depression before that and people were happy living on very little,” Rees said by cellphone. “But we had all of this idle machinery and underemployed labour as a result of the end of the war. To put all of that capital to work, the advertising industry had to turn us from being essentially conservative in our consumption patterns into turning consumption into a way of life.”
Rees pointed to four things that will precipitate change: catastrophe, coercion, pricing, and education.
“Pricing is marvellously effective at changing people’s behaviour,” he said. “If you think of energy use, there have only been two times in the entire history of industrial civilization in which per-capita energy use declined.”¦In the late 1970s, or early 1980s, there was a period of five or six years where the steep uptick was almost completely reversed. So we had an equally steep downturn in per-capita energy consumption for a period of years. And it was simply because of very high energy prices.”
Rees said the other time was 18 months ago, when gas prices hit $1.50 a litre. “We’re still seeing the ramifications of that with the collapse of Detroit and so on,” Rees added. “The SUV is dead.”
Now instead of bailouts, Rees said the governments should be raising gasoline taxes and introducing resource-depletion taxes to account for market failures in the fossil-fuel sector.
He is also keen to ratchet up public consciousness ahead of Earth Day.
“I’ve spent 40 years of my life trying to do that.”
More on Earth Day 2009:
Sow the seeds of change
Doctored crops stir Latin American debate
B.C. deserves better environmental policies
Confronting a climate crisis
Software has a hard impact on the planet
Courier firm sets example with hybrids
Take politics out of the Agricultural Land Reserve: agrologist
Critics say Premier Gordon Campbell is wrong on Gateway Program
Public meetings to begin on growth plan
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Comments
Taxing people to be environmentally responsible is a 1980's thing and doesn't work. We are now well into the 21st century and 21st century solutions need to be made.
The 300 km. solution - An affordable way to reduce gridlock and pollution
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-300-km-solution-an-...
Real action is needed, but I do not see any but tax after tax, burdening the poor, while the carbon tax lobby cares nothing.
Berman, your time has come and gone!
Don't listen to these shills for global taxation through carbon tax and cap and trade.
The Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the sun looks like it is entering a new grand minimum, so it will only be getting colder in this part of the world for several decades.
Cap and trade does nothing to affect greenhouse gas emissions but is very good at inflating the cost of all consumer goods and services becuase business and industry pass along the costs of buying carbon credits to the consumer.
Would it be more accurate to describe her as a business lobbyist representing the interests of private, export-oriented hydro power companies?
What exactly is PowerUP Canada? Is it a non-profit advocacy group, and if so who funds it? Or is it a commercial business association, an industry lobby group comparable to, say, Phil Hochstein's ICBA?
Rod Smelser
PLEASE WASH YOUR SCARF!
I WANT TO BE AN ENVIRONMENTALIST BUT THESE THROWBACKS KEEP MAKING IT SO HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Tyee is reporting that the United Steelworker's Union has withdrawn its support for PowerUP because of Berman's denunciation of Carole James.
Rod Smelser