Environmentalism: the ultimate luxury
By David O'Neil
The Peak (Simon Fraser University)
November 26, 2008
BURNABY (CUP) – Environmental issues enjoyed a prominent place on the campaign trail during the recent Canadian and American elections.
In Canada, voters rejected Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s “green shift,” while in the U.S., voters supported Barack Obama, who made a cap-and-trade carbon-credit system a central plank of his policy platform.
The last president who made environmental policy a central focus of his campaign was Bush the Elder in 1988. He ran as the “environmental president,” lambasting Michael Dukakis for the wretched state of Boston harbour. And to his credit, the first President Bush did pass the Clean Air Act in 1990.
However, when the recession of the early ‘90s hit (a phenomenon which swept Bush from office), mainstream political discussion about environmental concerns disappeared. More pressing economic matters took precedence over long-term environmental concerns, and a collective forgetfulness descended upon the United States for some time.
Sound familiar?
With the current economy heading towards a deeper recession than that of 1991, the smart money is on the environment disappearing from the public consciousness.
Few people are talking about Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, which was supposed to have brought the climate change issue to the masses, galvanizing public support. Why? Because the real inconvenient truth is that environmentalism is a luxury; it is an issue thought about only in comfortable and secure times.
In times when collective comfort is shattered, such as the recession in 1991, or the economic crisis unfolding right now, luxury issues such as the environment are tossed aside.
People are short-term thinkers, and the clear-and-present danger will always trump far-off threats. People don’t particularly care about air quality if their life savings are going down the drain or their house is being foreclosed.
If environmental action is taken in the United States or Canada in the next few years, it will likely be the result of an individual politician’s personal beliefs, will, and drive, not public pressure.
Given most politicians’ track record in dealing with issues when the heat is off, I am supremely skeptical of a cap-and-trade system being implemented in a time of economic crisis.
Indeed, the only way for environmental issues to return to the forefront of people’s minds right now is to have Mother Nature throw one hell of a temper tantrum.
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