It is a beautiful day in
Victoria. The sun is out and it is 10C. The flowers are up. Many
trees are in bloom. People are out working in their yards. But while
eating breakfast I pick up the Times-Colonist. A front page
story covers the demonstrations in Vancouver yesterday over the
proposed expansion of Trans Mountain Pipeline. Indigenous leaders
insist that the new pipeline will be stopped. But look how quickly
opposition was shut down at Standing Rock. Today the repressive state
has enormous power and popular opposition is weak. This is not the
1960s.
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| Vancouver rally againstTrans Moutain Pipeline |
Friday Kinder Morgan obtained
a court injunction banning protests at their Burnaby terminal. There
had been around 15 protesters there for over a week trying to slow
down new work, part of the expansion which has the approval of the
Trudeau government and the appointed National Energy Board.
Is there a chance that the
project can be stopped? The municipalities of Burnaby and Vancouver
have gone to court to challenge the legality of the NEB and their
declaration that the project can not be held up by laws existing in
the municipalities. The NEB has the support of the Trudeau
government.
There are high hopes that the
John Horgan NDP government will stand by its pledge that the pipeline
will not go ahead until an expert panel decides that there would be
no threat posed to B.C. from an oil spill. But the B. C. government
has already backed down on this political issue by agreeing to allow
the courts to rule on the legality of the proposed commission. Does
anyone really expect a court to rule against a corporate development
project? Will anyone really be surprised if the Horgan government
folds on this issue? The NDP government reversed its pledge to halt
the Site C dam construction.
But what disturbs me most is
the fact that in this political fight between the Alberta and BC NDP
governments the issue of climate change and the burning of fossil
fuels is nowhere to be found. Yet even the U.S. Energy Agency says
that if the goal of keeping the increase of the planet’s
temperature below 2 degrees C, all of the bitumen included in
the projected plans of the existing oil corporations operating in
the Alberta tar sands must stay in the ground!
There is a mountain of
scientific studies reporting on the extreme dangers to the planet
posed by climate change brought on by the increase of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. There are endless news reports which show
real changes happening right now. One can understand why most
governments make only empty pledges to take action. But it is hard to
understand why intelligent people do not take the issue seriously. It
does seem to me, as a political economist with an historical
orientation, that it is a reflection of the reality of the triumph of
liberal individualism and the defeat of the democratic tradition of
community solidarity.
The apocalypse:
(1)
On the Beach (1957
film)
This
film is based on Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel of the same name
depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no blame
is placed on whoever started the war; it is hinted in the film that
the threat of annihilation may have arisen from an accident or
misjudgment.
(2)
Planet of the Apes (original
film, 1968)
American astronauts land on
strange planet where they find that evolved apes rule and dominate a
smaller mute human population. Film ends when Charleton Heston, the
captain, discovers the remains of the Statue of Liberty and realizes
that they are on Earth which has been nearly destroyed after humans
engaged in nuclear war.
(3) The Road (2009
film)
A man and his young son
struggle to survive after a global cataclysm has caused perhaps by
climate change. There is no living environment. They scavenge for
supplies and avoid roaming gangs as they travel on a road to the
southern coast in the hope that it will be warmer. Based on the novel
of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, one of my very favourite
authors. This novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.
(4) The Last Policeman
(trilogy by Ben H. Winters, 2013. )
The trilogy is a combination
of a crime novel and science fiction. The world faces extinction as a
large object from outer space approaches. How people react is the
theme. As refugees approach the USA men turn to guns. Winters, it
seems to me, is describing how Europeans are dealing with desperate
refugees from the Middle East. The Pentagon study of the effects of
climate change predicts American refugees (in the millions) fleeing
to Canada.
