ReturnToTheTarSands

 

Mr. Peter Deranger, Aboriginal Elder, Fort McMurray: 

He had a dream: “Silence.  All the trees were black.  No insects.  He walked down to the stream but couldn’t drink the water.  Smoke was rising in the air.”  After that, he couldn’t go back to work.  His family and relatives all work here but they don’t feel right.  Fort Mackay is surrounded.  Lots of money is coming in but they’re destroying the land. 
People work in mines for 30 years to keep their family together and live comfortably.  He’d like to go to work and not worry but he can’t.  People are worried about the end of the world. Up here, “Oil War” gets its name because our oil fuels the USA’s wars.  Huge corporations make it impossible for the small guys to compete.  Capitalism must be returned back to the people.
Natives believe that everything humans need is on the surface: food, water, shelter, and medicines for all diseases are abundant on the earth’s surface.  Mining is a mess, and it makes mother earth sick.
The forest is alive with our relatives.  We must take a stand.  His advice:  Talk about it.  Find out what others are doing, people can think of many alternatives.

Mr. Mike Nickerson, Author, introduced me to the idea of economic value systems that include more than just money (eg. Genuine progress index, GPI).  Because of the overpowering necessity for economic growth, it is easy for government and corporate decision makers to forget that wealth can come from “skills, scholarship, art, music, sport, dance, friendship, spiritual aspiration, parenting, etc.” – in addition to the exchange of goods, services and money.  When a barrel of oil is extracted, that is considered $70 of positive growth for Canada.  Natural resources have zero value in GDP, so losing natural resources is insignificant.  However, if resource depletion is considered, many countries have a negative GPI. Measuring well being - http://www.flora.org/sustain/well-being.shtml

Mr. Thomas Mulclair, NDP candidate for Outremont riding, Montreal, last night after a debate on poverty:  He resigned in 2006 as Minister of Sustainable Development for Quebec because Premier Charest wouldn’t accept basic environmental programs.  He spoke about China and industrial and economic growth and how it’s too scary for a politician to say this but, he whispers “maybe permanent exponential growth is not a good idea”.  So I interrupted him at that point and said “hey – so what do you think about GPI or a value system to determine a country’s wealth that includes more than how much money changes hands per year, e.g. natural resources and quality of life).  He said “It doesn’t matter what you call it.  If you cut down more trees than you plant, it’s unsustainable.”  And “The only way to increase wealth is through education.”  (- I think he meant $$ wealth).  But he’d never heard of such a value system that competes with GDP.  Or else he’s not comfortable discussing it and is thus missing the root of cutting down more trees than we plant.  We are under pressure from the world economy and its shareholders to cut down more and more trees every year, because the economy has to grow.  It seems no one’s ready to admit that the economy cant continue to grow forever… or can it?
A conversation between Kathy Trajan, cyclist and Rhodes Scholar and Anthony Cary, British High Commissioner went something like this:
“It is unfortunate that the Canadian prime minister doesn’t recognize or believe the science behind climate change.  Steven Harper’s idea of balancing environment and economics is flawed because the economy depends entirely on the environment.”

For me, this is all the more reason that we must adjust out economic value system to include a value for environmental depletion.  That way, there will no longer be “environment versus economy.”  Instead, when a resource is depleted or destroyed, that will cast a negative value on the economic spreadsheets, as it does in the real world.

Filed under: Commentary, Environmental Justice, TTTS, Trade on September 24th, 2007