SUZUKI – Some resolutions for a happy, fossil-free new year!
DID YOU MAKE any New Year’s resolutions? Anyone resolve to help overthrow consumer capitalism?
If we come together and resolve to do better for each other and the planet, we could find a better path. It would be easier if the gas, oil and coal industries and their supporters would resolve to clean up their act, but the climate conference in the United Arab Emirates at the end of 2023 showed they’ve only resolved to do as little as possible while raking in massive profits and fuelling not only a climate crisis but an affordability one as well.
Many are trying to fool the public with disingenuous propaganda about carbon capture and commitments to reducing emissions — but only from extraction and production and not the real dangerous emissions from burning the fuels as intended.
A cap on oil and gas industry emissions, as Canada’s government has promised, is important, but it’s just a small step. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground!
The evidence for runaway climate change and its catastrophic consequences is indisputable — and plain to see for anyone paying attention to the rapidly increasing extreme weather events, flooding, droughts, heat domes and more. The evidence for the incredible benefits of shifting from burning polluting fuels to cleaner energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal is also clear.
The most obvious is that it will help stabilize the climate and prevent even greater acceleration of costly consequences, from rising health care costs to infrastructure and agriculture damage.
But conserving energy and using cleaner energy sources will also create more and better employment, increase economic opportunities and avoid millions of preventable deaths and illnesses, as well as slowing a growing crisis of migrants leaving increasingly inhospitable parts of the planet. If done right, it can even lead to great equality.
Who doesn’t want cleaner air and water, better opportunities, more equality and greater societal stability? Apparently, fossil fuel executives and their supporters, who value money and power above all else, including a survivable climate!
We need to get serious. We can’t keep living in denial. Human-caused climate disruption is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. But it’s not a challenge without solutions.
We’ve all seen how rapidly technology can advance when we put our minds to it. Just look at the phenomenal change in computing power. Most of us now carry computers in our pockets or purses that are more powerful than the massive systems that first put people on the moon!
We see similar advances in energy and energy storage technologies. Power from wind and solar is now less expensive than power from coal, gas and oil, even with storage. It’s also more efficient — and far less polluting. And it’s not subject to volatile markets and industry profiteering.
But what can we do in our own lives? How can we push back against an industry that has such as hold on global economies and such great influence over politicians?
First, we need to be informed. And despite — or perhaps because of — the plethora of information out there, that can be a challenge. But if we employ critical thinking skills and learn to evaluate sources to know which are credible and which aren’t, we can put the pieces together.
We also have to free ourselves from the consumer prison we’ve created. Working long hours and going into debt so we can have more stuff isn’t the way to happiness.
We especially have to advocate for better transportation options. The idea of the private automobile — using machines made of tonnes of metal, plastic and other materials to move less than a hundred kilograms of people, especially burning massive amounts of fossil fuels to do so — doesn’t make sense, other than as a way to increase oil and auto industry profits.
Most of all, we need to come together to make our voices heard. Whether it’s joining protests, writing letters and signing petitions, talking to friends and family, letting politicians know they’ll only earn our support when they take the climate crisis seriously, or all or some of the above, we can make a difference. Above all, let’s resolve to be kind to each other!
Here’s to a happier new year!
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington. Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Zuzuki: “Whether it’s joining protests, writing letters and signing petitions, talking to friends and family, letting politicians know they’ll only earn our support when they take the climate crisis seriously, or all or some of the above, we can make a difference.”
You are encouraging people to talk the talk. Fine, it is a beginning.
Zuzuki:”It would be easier if the gas, oil and coal industries and their supporters would resolve to clean up their act,…”
We, the consumers, are an integral part of the oil and gas industry. There is no industry with out consumers. Any measure to prompt the industry to clean up their act must include the consumers, namely us. You must encourage people to not just talk the talk, you must encourage everyone to walk the walk.
Dr. Zuzuki gently hints that consumers must change their ways, but directs most of his major demands and wrath on industry. The underlying theme being that climate change is an industry/government problem and the consumer is only a minor contributor to the problem. On the contrary, THE CONSUMER IS THE MAJOR CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE. Industry doesn’t produce anything that the consumers don’t buy. Stop buying it and they will stop producing it!
My only criticism of Dr. Zuzuki is that many times his messages contain elements of demagoguery. Perhaps this is necessary so as not to alienate his audience, but I fear that not fully addressing the role that consumers play in climate change further delays the corrective measures we need to take if we are to have a future on this planet.
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My resolve is to impact less.
And to shake my head in disbelief at the ones still denying the great impact that the Canadian way of life of wasteful excessiveness has on the environment.
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I might resolve to stop reading Suzuki’s alarmist garbage…. :-) I can only assume that when he refers to overthrowing consumer capitalism that he means for other people to donate their capital, as he will be planning to keep his.
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My resolution is to not buy a $68K electric sedan (pre-tax), and vote for any party scrapping the carbon tax.
As Mr. Suzuki suggests, I also write petitions and contact elected officials to voice my opinions. I particularly like what Saskatchewan is doing by sticking up for its citizens and refusing to collect carbon taxes on behalf of Ottawa, after the decision to exempt the most polluting heating fuel for some. If the politicians can play games with environmental policy, surely I can as well, and put my own interests first, as they did with their targeted exemption that was clearly a vote buying decision.
I don’t want to live in a world where private transport is outlawed, as Mr. Suzuki suggests. I am not getting onto a bus with drug addicts strewn about, random assaults, and people with respiratory illnesses.
Mr. Suzuki will not take my vehicle from me. Mr. Suzuki would have us living in a commune and tilling the fields if he had his way. Mr. Suzuki is a climate extremist. If all of what he said was true, that a transition to cleaner power would result in more jobs and economic outcomes, the transition would happen naturally and quickly. The fact is, and this is the Achilles heal of his argument, that any shift to cleaner lives must not double the cost of consumers as you see with electric vehicles and their $60K replacement battery packs, heating taxes and opaque rebates, and must not take away the comforts we use on a daily basis.
Until that time, and while appreciative of Mr. Suzuki’s efforts as I do believe they come from a good place, I will be checking out of that progrom.
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