Jobs and Environment

By David Dawson

As I have said before: if you ask people which is more important, their job, the economy or the environment, most will say their job or the economy.  But if you ask the same people which is more important for their grandchildren, they will almost all say the environment is the most important. 

So the question I ask is, why isn’t the environment top priority for adults?  The answer I believe is ‘personal security’.  That of course is a very understandable reason but a selfish reason.  The most important job for all parents is to raise their children in a safe and healthy environment, and that must include ensuring they have a safe and healthy environment for their children’s children.  It’s like passing it forward. 

We have this apparent total disconnect between the present and the future: present pleasures taking priority over long-term security.  Why?

In Canada we are lucky to live in one of the most beautiful unspoiled countries in the world, yet there seems to be little effort to keep it that way.  Our greenhouse gas emissions are not coming down.  We spray chemicals all over the countryside.  We all want large lots or a few acres that make it necessary to drive everywhere – and most vehicles are large gas-guzzling SUVs or trucks.  Even in Steinbach where lots of apartments have been built recently, the supermarkets are too far away for a comfortable walk, especially in winter.  We pay little attention to the use of solar power.  As a start all new houses could face south and be built ‘solar ready’.  Unfortunately Manitoba Hydro essentially discourages personal investment in solar energy (or wind), preferring to spend $billions on new hydroelectric generating dams in the north.  There is so much we could do but we actually do practically nothing.  The question is, why? 

One of the things that really depresses me is all the garbage one sees thrown out of the windows along our roads.  Bags of MacDonald’s waste, Tim Horton’s coffee cups or A&W garbage.  Also, lots of plastic water bottles, pop cans, beer bottles, plastic bags and even loads of builders trash.  Twenty five years ago our roads were pristine and one would never see any of this, so who is doing it?  Have our moral standards deteriorated over the last few years?

All these questions can be answered quite simply by ‘lack of real leadership’.  We have had a series of leaders – political leaders, business leaders, military leaders and church leaders (amongst others), but none of them is at all charismatic.  They would rather spend $300m to build a new football stadium than an effective sewage plant to save Lake Winnipeg. When I asked a retired university professor about the logic of this, his reply was that to understand it you have to be a politician.  Obviously, the top priority of politicians is to themselves get re-elected so they can continue to advance their political agenda.  Clearly there are more votes in building a stadium than a sewage treatment plant.  We need to tell our politicians they are wrong.