Here's A Scary Thought: Let's Keep Fossil Fuels In The Ground

WTF? What are you talking about?

You heard me right. Let's keep them in the ground. The choice is clear. If we continue to extract and burn them, dumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the process, we risk rendering the earth inhospitable for human life. Or, we could stop torching the earth by simply leaving them in the ground. A drastic reduction in their availability would require a complete redesign of the economy, forcing us to develop the use of renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels.

But that would cause massive pain to a lot of people who depend on their exploitation to earn their livelihoods. Absolutely. Yet, in comparison to the suffering that awaits humanity as a result of parts of the planet becoming inhospitable, it is minor. Short-term pain, long-term gain.

But what about the economy? Weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels would shrink the economy.

Well, there are times when you have to say FUCK the economy: the outbreak of the global COVID pandemic comes to mind. In order to save lives, the populations of the world's leading economies were locked down and commerce was severely reduced, thereby limiting the spread of the virus. Economic growth was sacrificed for the benefit of the population at large.

Turning to the question of catastrophic climate change, if ever there were a context in which the thought, "FUCK the economy" should reign, it is in the context of the immense challenge facing us to mitigate the damage of climate change. If we don't change our ways, and do so quickly, we face the very real possibility of bringing on a massive die off of the human race within the next hundred years.

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There are some that think this isn't such a bad idea, believing that my strong feelings on the subject are too anthropocentric. Maybe I'm wired that way. Others have already reached the conclusion that catastrophic climate change is inevitable and that there isn't anything we can do now to prevent it. The process is already too advanced to change the planet's trajectory. Consequently, we should try to squeeze out as much pleasure as we can before the party is over, like the passengers who drank and danced while the band played on after the Titanic had struck the iceberg.

Personally, I believe we have a moral obligation to abandon our addiction to fossil fuels. Perhaps, going cold turkey is not the way to go about it. Nevertheless, the "Keep Fossil Fuels In The Ground" meme needs to gain traction. It needs to spread and filter its way into the political discourse. The sooner, the better!

Wake Up Canada: It Doesn't Have To Be This Way

These are trying times. A global pandemic has forced millions of people to re-evaluate their priorities and rethink the way their lives are structured. Yet, in the midst of the tumult, Canadians have been forced to go to the polls to elect a new government even though the government in place has done an admirable job of handling the Covid-19 crisis. Why? Is it because of what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dubiously asserted to be a toxic situation in Parliament? 

 

Toxic for whom? For the population at large, or for Trudeau’s aspirations to rule the country like a king?  Seeing that the Liberal government has been able to pass all of its legislation without having the opposition parties that are in the majority force an election by means of a non-confidence motion, it appears that the problem is Trudeau’s desire to rule as if he had the support of the majority of Canadian electors when clearly he hasn’t. The only way he can expect to form a majority government and assume the regal powers that go with it is that the antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system distorts the popular vote so to fabricate a false majority. No wonder he reneged on his promise to change the voting system. He now stands to be the principal beneficiary of its systemic distortions.

 

If we dig a bit deeper, the real problem isn’t simply Trudeau’s desire to rule like a king, but Canada’s inability to upgrade its political system from a system born in the nineteenth century, before the advent of electricity, to a system capable of responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century, a century in which humanity’s future is threatened by its refusal to make the necessary changes to ensure its survival in the face of catastrophic climate change.

 

Canadians find themselves trapped by a political system that perpetuates the colonial obsession with wealth extraction. The two political parties that have governed Canada, Liberal or Conservative, since confederation may differ with regard to their social policies, but both have given their unwavering support to economic policies that give priority to the perpetual accumulation of wealth. In this regard, both parties are the flip side of the same coin, what the French refer to as: la pensée unique. 

 

Although it may be argued that this manner of thinking served the nation well throughout the twentieth century, having helped to build the infrastructure that makes modern life possible, it is the inability to let go of this colonial mindset that is the real issue. Essentially, the present system of governance promotes the wealth accumulation modus operandi to such an extent that it prevents any significant change that would steer the nation in another direction.

However, for Canada not to change direction, along with all the other developed nations, runs the risk of sacrificing the well-being of future generations because they will be the ones who will be saddled with the onerous task of trying to survive in a world where today’s extreme weather events are no longer considered to be extreme.

 

I wonder how many citizens from Lytton, British Columbia will be voting in this federal election?  I’m sure that many of them will be, but they won’t be casting their votes in the small town they used to call home. After recording the highest temperature since records have been kept in Canada, 49 degrees Celsius, Lytton had the misfortune of being caught in what seemed like a case of spontaneous combustion from a Dickens’ novel. The nearby forest burst into flames and engulfed the town in a fire that burned 90% of the buildings to the ground.

 

Hello Canada. That was your wake up call. The formation of heat domes has increased in frequency during the last ten years. How many towns need to meet the same fate before Canada takes concrete action instead of setting carbon emissions goals that it never meets? The time has come for immediate action. Forget trying to make believe change is in the works. as long as no concrete measures are put into place. It might be already to late to mitigate the damage that climate change will bring about during what’s left of the century. But we have a moral obligation to assume the duty of care towards the environment. Nothing less will do.

 

Now, here’s the thing. Giving Trudeau a majority government will only exacerbate the problem. Remember this is the man who thought it would be a good thing if the Canadian government would support the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline that would almost triple the amount of oil being transported from Alberta through the interior of British Columbia, a province that is now experiencing the worst forest fire devastation in living memory. Talk about throwing gasoline on the fire. The Canadian government bought the Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan Inc. for C$4.5 billion in 2018 after the company threatened to scrap the line's expansion amid fierce environmental opposition. It did so while Trudeau’s Liberals formed a “majority” government with less than 40% of the popular vote.

 

One of the fallouts of the COVID pandemic, however, is the realization that nothing is written in stone. Change is possible. For example, millions of people have continued to work through these difficult times, no longer having to waste two hours of their day commuting to and from their place of work. Instead, they learned to work from home without a demonstrable loss of productivity. Now the majority of these workers don’t want to return to the status quo, the way things were before the pandemic. They would prefer to continue to work from home, at least for a coupe of days per week. Others came to the realization that they were sacrificing too much of their lives for the sake of keeping their jobs. As a result, the Great Resignation has ensued and millions of workers in North America have quit their jobs.

 

In a similar vein, the pandemic has demonstrated that a majority government in Parliament is not required to run a country like Canada even during a global health crisis. In fact, the concentration of political power in one person constitutes a significant risk since one person holding such power can make decisions that imperil the well-being of the population as has been the case in the Trump-led USA, the Johnson-led Great Britain, and the Bolsonaro-led Brazil.

 

Facing the even greater challenge of responding to the challenge of dealing with catastrophic climate change, Canadians would do well not to place all their eggs in one basket by handing Trudeau a majority government. He can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Political power means too much to him, and to maintain that power he will be extremely reluctant to do anything that would diminish the returns to the investors in the gas and oil sector. He won’t bite the hand that feeds him. 

 

But that what’s needed to even have the slim chance of mitigating the effects of extreme weather events like the one that destroyed the town of Lytton. The new normal that we are rapidly moving towards includes what were once in a lifetime weather event happening every year and what were once in a millennium event happening every decade.

 

A minority Liberal, Conservative, or New Democratic Party government is Canada’s best option at the moment. That way the regal powers of the crown-in-parliament political system will not be transferred to a single person. As much as some people are disappointed with Trudeau’s performance, a majority Conservative government is not something to be desired. No one person should be empowered to make the decisions for the entire country, especially now since the quality of life of future generations is now in our hands.

A Lament For A Paradise Lost

Not having written a blog post for a couple of years, I knew that it might be difficult to get into the flow. I wanted to break my silence. I thought I would write a post about climate change and that I would take my usual tone of the disgruntled citizen railing against the powers that be for their inaction and a complacent citizenry for not paying sufficient attention to what’s going on. Then, this Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its latest assessment, and the prognosis was worse than what I feared. It now seems certain that climate change is occurring at a faster rate than we thought, the change is unequivocally being caused by human activity, and the effects will be felt for centuries. The only thing we can do know is mitigate the damage. For example, if we can cut global emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by the middle of this century, we can halt and possibly reverse the rise in temperatures. Good luck with that!

I am not a pessimist. Far from it. However, the scale of the change required to be able to reach those lofty goals are beyond humanity’s capacity to change. It would require a total make over of how we live our lives. Massive investments would need to be redirected into re-engineering how we make things, how we move about, and what and how we consume what is produced. In other words, our level of comfort and the convenient way in which life has been arranged for the vast majority of people in the developed world would become a thing of the past.

One of the key takeaways from the global response to the COVID pandemic is how deeply we are attached to our precious lifestyles. What should be a simply straight forward public health issue has become politicized. Throughout Europe and North and South America a significant number of people resent or even refuse to adopt rather innocuous measures like wearing a mask in public or getting vaccinated against the virus, claiming that their rights are being infringed upon. Moreover, there are sufficient number politicians who pander to their desires not to have to make changes in the way they live. As a result, the number of human lives lost and the level of grief to be endured is far higher than it need be.

I say this because the level of change required to mitigate climate change is exponentially greater than what has been required to limit the effects of the spread of the COVID virus. This is extremely discouraging since the effects of contracting the virus are immediate and the spread of the human misery caused by the virus is very rapid. It only took a few scant months for the world to become engulfed in a global crisis. Yet, countries like the United States of America and Brazil dragged their heels when it came time to protect their citizens and hundreds of thousands of people perished as a result of government inaction.

If major, economically-advanced nations cannot respond adequately to the threat of the spread of a virus, it is extremely unlikely that they will be able to respond adequately to the threat of climate change. Too many players have to come to agreement on what needs to be done in too short of a time frame for an effective response to emerge. Besides, the political will is not there. Governments are not apt to take action that would reduce the earnings of the shareholders of fossil fuel companies, and citizens who are trying to return as quickly as they can to their previous lifestyles are not going to force the issue.

So, what’s left for the distraught to do? Not much. Individuals cutting back on their own consumption of fossil fuels will not be enough. The damage has already been done and will only get worse as we plod through the rest of the century. By the time humanity reaches the tipping point of realizing that it is the midst of a climate catastrophe, it will be too late. The apocalyptic images we have witnessed in the summer of 2021 are alarming, but no where near what is coming down the road in the years ahead.

I mourn losing what we had, and ask forgiveness to future generations for not exercising the duty of care necessary so that you too could behold the amazing beauty of the earth as it used to be. 

Trudeau Remains Prime Minister Thanks to Canada's Pathetic Voting System

What do Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump have in common? Both leaders actually lost the popular vote in the last elections. However, they both became the leader of their respective countries due to the distortions of the voting systems used in each one.

In the 2015 electoral campaign, Justin Trudeau promised that this would be last the Canadian federal election using the archaic voting system, single member plurality (SMP) better known as first-past-the-post (FPTP). He didn't keep his promise. Now we know why.

In yesterday's general election, from a democratic perspective Trudeau did not win the election. He lost. The Conservatives actually received more votes. He is the Prime Minister because of the manner votes are translated into seats in Canada.

In reality, there are 338 separate elections during the general election. In each one, all that is required is to receive the most votes. There is no direct relation between the total number of votes cast and the distribution of seats.

In a hypothetical example, if we divide a region into ten distinct electoral districts and in each district, Party A wins 40% of the vote, Party B wins 30%, and Party C wins 20% of the vote, Party A wins all the electoral districts and gets 100% of the available seats. Obviously, the goal here is not to provide democratic representation but to reward the political party who wins what is essentially an electoral contest not an exercise in democracy.

That's just what happened in Canada. Trudeau didn't win a democratic election. He won a piss poor electoral contest just like Trump won in the USA, held with slightly different rules but with the same intent.

In Canada during the last 15 years, there have been 6 referendums at the provincial level that gave the option of changing the voting system. There will be a seventh referendum in Quebec in 2022. The problems of FPTP are well known. Even Justin Trudeau is aware of them.

So, why don't Canadians demand something better?  Well, that would entail sustained political engagement and Canadians are just too lazy and would simply prefer to defer to authority and continue to participate in electoral contests rather than live in a democracy.

Perhaps, the only way to get out of this mess is for the Supreme Court of Canada to declare the voting system null and void for not respecting the right to vote as stipulated in Section 3 of the Charter.

Soon, there will be Charter Challenge launched by a group of citizens that seeks such a result.

Maybe the Supreme Court will uphold the rights of Canadians to participate in a meaningful exercise of democracy when choosing their representatives. 

Canada's General Election Looks Like a Bad Kabuki Performance

Normally, I find Canadian General Elections to be rather boring. For 150 plus years, Canadians have been governed by either the red party or the blue party. Now, since neither party can attract 40% of the popular vote, the election is decided by which party will receive the benefit of the systemic distortions that the first-past-the-post voting method brings about. In the last election, the red party was awarded all of the 61 seats available in the Maritimes although it had only received 56% of the popular vote there. This was enough to give the red party a majority of seats in Parliament and full control of the government. No wonder the leader of the red party, Justin Trudeau, reneged on his electoral promise of changing the voting system.

But this general election is turning out to be something different. It reminds me of the Japanese traditional theater, Kabuki, in which the actors dress up in vivid costumes, wear a lot of make up, and strike dramatic poses to make contact with the audience.

In the Canadian version, Justin Trudeau has had photos of him unearthed, revealing him dressed up like a genie from the Arabian Nights, wearing dark brown make up. Say no more. A picture is worth a thousand words, but this time the staging has gone awry.

Coming after a multitude of photos showing how cool our Prime Minister was supposed to be, these photos suggest something totally different. Without his staff photographer there to stage the shot, these photos suggest the real character of the person playing out his role in our political theater, one that is certainly not very flattering.

In this case, the pose, the costume, and especially the make up shout out racist hypocrite.

My oh my, how is the audience going to react? Certainly, many Canadians will feel like they were duped into thinking that Justin Trudeau embodied the values of social justice. Looking at these photos along with the video showing him as a young man wearing black face, I can't help but think that a great many voters who voted for the red party in the last election will either vote for the green party or decide to sit out this election and not go to the polls.

So the only real question left to be decided in this is whether Trudeau's abysmal Kabuki moment will be enough to oust him as Canada's Prime Minister.

Fortunately, this crappy telenovella will soon be over.







 

When It Comes To Boring Nobody Does It Better Than Canada

A Group of Canadians Watching the Leaders Debate

Same as it ever was . . .
Same as it ever was . . .
(Once In A Lifetime, The Talking Heads)

It's a moody Manitoba mornin'
Nothing's really happening, it never does (Moody Manitoba Morning, The Bells)

Having lived for almost all my life in Canada, I am struck by the boring sameness of life in the Great White North.  Yes, there are some interesting places to visit and some interesting people to get to know, but, all in all, living here is like watching the snow melt.

I think it has something to do with the geography.  In a travel brochure you might see some appealing photos of Quebec City, Peggy's Cove, Niagara Falls and the Rocky Mountains, but what the brochures fail to mention is the vast distances separating our sights of interest and how excruciatingly boring it is to traverse those spaces of the big empty.

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I know.  I come from the prairies.  Living in Winnipeg was cool, but ask anyone what it is like to drive in or out of Winnipeg on the Trans Canada Highway.  The greatest danger comes from the fact that the land is incredibly flat and the road is incredibly straight.  It is so boring that people fall asleep at the wheel while driving, leading, of course, to tragic consequences.

A couple of years ago, I decided to drive from Ottawa to Winnipeg and traversed our largest province, Ontario.  Let me tell you, the Canadian Shield is interesting for about fifteen minutes of the two full days of seeing nothing but rocks and lakes and trees and the occasional Tim Horton's, Canada's favorite coffee and doughnut shop.  So boring that my two sons sucked me into an argument when leaving Thunder Bay about whether Terry Fox is a Canadian hero just to yank my chain in order to break up the monotony.

I can also attest that driving from Winnipeg northward to Thompson, Manitoba, and along Quebec's Lower North Shore are as boring if not more so than driving across Ontario.  Some would argue that the most boring drive is from Montreal to Toronto.  It's difficult to decide.  To do so would involve an extremely boring conversation I would rather avoid.

Regardless, if people are to survive and prosper in Canada, they need to be genetically endowed to be able endure long periods of time where nothing much happens and to fill those days, weeks, months, and years, with mind-numbing routines in order to pass the time.  Life in Canada is about exciting as paying down a 25 year mortgage.

My father, on the other hand, lived through some remarkable times.  He grew up during the Depression; went off to fight in the Second World War; played professional football; brought up two kids that saw a man walking on the moon.

Not me.

The only iconic moment that comes to mind thinking about the last fifty years in Canada was Paul Henderson scoring the winning goal with the time running out in the final game of the Canada-Russia Summit Series in 1972.  Not a lot has happened since.  Like what?  The Charter, NAFTA, Justin Bieber?  That's about it.  History is what happens outside of Canada. OK. The Raptors winning the NBA title was pretty awesome.

Which brings me to Canada's current General Election, which will go down in history as one of the most boring electoral campaigns ever held, as about exciting as driving across Ontario.

In fact, Canada's present social contract has been in place for more than 40 years.  All we do is tinker at the periphery.  Raise or lower taxes slightly.  Add on an additional social program here and there.  Nothing that would rock the boat.  Steady as she goes.

All in all, it comes down to which leader can do the least harm.  Four more years of the same, or four years of someone brand new that is trying to convince us that there are no big plans in the works?  These are the choices?

In any case, whoever forms the next government will probably not have a majority of seats in Parliament.  Nothing new there.

Stay tuned.  Given how the first-past-the-post voting system does not work very well with multi-party elections, I am sure that the either the Red Party or the Blue Party will be the recipient of an electoral distortion that will either one a majority of seats. Ho hum. Same as it ever was.

After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Let's keep on chugging along with what we got, and thank God we are not living in Central America, a place where you can't sit patiently and watch the snow melt.

Connecting the Dots Between Electoral Systems and Income Equality

At long last, people have realized that the politics of economic growth are conceived to enrich the top 0.1% of the population at the expense of the bottom 99%.

However, one huge question remains: how do you fix the system?

The answer is that you have to change the electoral system that enables a small minority to effectively buy the politicians that will do their bidding. To do this, we have to get rid of selecting our elected representatives by the single member plurality method more popularly known as first-past-the-post.

If ever there was a voting system designed to favor rent seeking, the economic term for buying favors, it is first-past-the-post. I love the name because the horse race allusion captures what happens in the stands at a race track: being able to pick the winner backed by a significant wager pays off handsomely.

Let us remember that there is no greater return on investment in countries that use first-past-the-post than making a financial contribution to a political party coupled with a post election lobbying campaign. In the market, competition is fierce and investments to increase market share or profitability are fraught with uncertainty as competitors try to gain advantage in a zero-sum game. So, instead of trying to tip the entire playing field in one's direction, it is much easier to increase profits by getting those who set the rules of the game to intercede on one's behalf with a government contract, favorable legislation, or fiscal policy.

This is how the top 1% reap the lion's share of the nation's wealth. They hedge their bets, so it doesn't matter who wins the election. Both parties that offer government options to the electorate are funded by or by those who owe their social standing to the one per centers. Consequently, electoral campaigns come and go, focusing on peripheral issues, leaving in place the cumulative gains that the constant lobbying piles up for those in the upper most echelons of the society.

Indeed, accumulating favors is relatively easy to do when polling data tells you where the political parties stand relative to one another and all that is required is to pick which candidate will garner the most votes in each single electoral district. No messy formulas that award seats on the basis of the popular vote. Few surprises with regard to which candidate from which party will get elected. As a result, it is not difficult to identify who needs to be influenced in order to obtain preferential treatment and a cosy symbiotic relationship between politicians and their financiers comes about.

No wonder the anachronistic first-past-the-post resists attempts to replace it with other electoral systems that give better representation of the popular vote. To change the voting system, especially for one that gives proportional representation, increases the uncertainty of the results and consequently increases the risk of getting a return from one's campaign contribution.

In fact, multiparty coalitions are much more difficult to influence since there is no one who can wield authority in a unilateral fashion. Moreover, when everything has to be negotiated, there are no guarantees that the negotiated agreement will deliver the goods. In the process of negotiation, one's preferred outcome may fall off the table in the process of reaching an agreement.

To change the political economy so that there is a more equitable distribution of a nation's wealth, the demos, in other words the 99% who are effectively under-represented, must ensure that the transfer of political power from the electorate to elected officials that occurs as a result of election is done in a truly democratic fashion.

This will not occur as long as the first-past-the-post system is in place. To change the distribution of wealth, people must disable the political institution that enables the concentration of wealth in the first place.

(This post first appeared in November, 2011.)