Well. Time to eat some crow.

A couple of weeks ago I slagged Lana (and fellow NDP MLA John Horgan) for standing in the way of what we really need, which is rapid and decisive action on climate change and peak oil. Their party will, in fact, contribute to both climate change and our dependence upon oil by continuing to subsidize it.

That said, it is pointless, unfair, and ungentlemanly to harshly criticize well-meaning people who are trying to do their best in our broken system. Lana and John, both of whom I know personally though not well, are good people. I don’t agree with everything they do; I think subsidizing oil and gas is shortsighted and foolish.

But.

And it’s a very large but.

Our political system is broken. I have written as much elsewhere, and will do so again in my forthcoming book, The Way Home. (Tentatively subtitled: You Can’t Get There from Here, or, what you should be doing to protect yourself and your family against the coming economic, environmental, and social collapse. Cheery, no?)

I wish she would follow-through on some very important promises; at one point, she had asked Guy Dauncey and me to serve on an advisory group to help her with environmental issues. That never happened, and we could have been of some help. As an almost trivial example, Lana was “named “runner up” as Community Leader in the annual CFAX awards for her campaign to replace disposable plastic bags with reusable ones.” (Almost amusing, considering CFAX leans heavily toward climate change denial.) Had I been advising her, I would have suggested that instead all bags should be compostable. What’s the point in replacing disposable bags with ones that last longer but still ultimately end up in the landfill? That still sounds like disposable to me.

Had I been offering suggestions, I would have suggested that someone in the government go talk to companies that make compostable products and ask them if they would locate a plant in BC if a law were passed requiring all ‘disposable’ bags to be compostable. I bet they would. It’s a guaranteed market.

I digress.

The point is, why am I being so hard on a well-meaning person who is doing her best within a broken system? Lana understands the danger of climate change. She is, I have no doubt, working hard within our system, which includes that of her party, to do the right thing.

It is unlikely to be enough. Ideally, all the well-meaning people who ‘get it’ would go on ’strike, a la Atlas Shrugged.* If only all the Lana Pophams and John Horgans (and Brian Gordons) would go on strike, would refuse to serve a corrupt political system, surely the masses would be forced to confront reality, would rebel against the self-serving crooks who largely populate our political landscape, and finally start selecting people of wisdom over those of substance….

It is an idle and ridiculous dream at this point, and as someone committed to embracing reality, I must apologize to Ms. Popham (and Mr. Horgan). If Lana stepped aside, someone would rush to fill her place, likely someone much less worthy. I would infinitely rather have Lana as my MLA than that person.

I accused Lana of being an obstacle to the change that is necessary. That was unfair. In an ideal world, she would be. But we don’t live in an ideal world. All the wise people who ‘get it’ are not going to go on strike and force a confrontation with reality. We can’t even get it together enough to speak with one voice, never mind actually act in concert for the good of humanity and the planet.

So, all this said, I am glad that Lana is my MLA, and I apologize to her, publicly, for my harsh words.  Do I think her party, if elected, will do what is necessary to at least mitigate some of the coming damage due to climate change and peak oil? Sadly, no. But Lana is doing her best within a broken system, and I can hardly ask for more.

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* For those who have not plodded through Ayn Rand’s opus, the premise is that those who actually do positive things go on strike. In Rand’s view, these people are people like steel and railroad magnates.

Those of you who follow me know that I have recently ceased making posts urging large-scale reform. The reasons for that are fairly simple, but they involve a psychological hurdle to get over.

I have been communicating with James Howard Kunstler, John Michael Greer, and David Holmgren, all of whom I have interviewed, about a Wise Action Plan. The goal was for us to agree on this Plan and then publicly pronounce it in an effort to get some sensible action on peak oil and climate change. Initially, I urged a response that included a revitalization of rail, large-scale wind or solar farms, and other actions that require the federal government to take a strong leadership role.

While the others generally agreed such actions would be a good idea, especially if they have been started 20 or more years ago, two of the three thought they were a waste of time. They had two reasons for this:

1. It’s too late. We needed to be getting off oil while we still had a surplus. Now that we’ve hit peak oil, diverting any oil to build solar panels means there is less for cars or crops.
2. They ain’t gonna. What politician is going to do that, barring an emergency situation? (Emergency is here defined as rioting, fuel rationing, or other severe measures.)

To be fair to our politicians, it’s hard to get elected telling people their lifestyle is going to change drastically, including many of them giving up their cars. The problem is partly cultural; we want what we want, and we’re going to keep electing politicians who give it to us until that is no longer possible.

And to be brutally honest, most of us have bought into the idea of unending growth and improvement, that the market will find solutions to concerns like oil depletion, and that if it were really that bad, somebody would do something.

At that point, we will be well into the emergency.

It has been difficult for me to give up on the idea of leadership from above. I ran federally as a Green Party of Canada candidate last go-round, but wouldn’t do it again. Even in the fantastic unlikelihood that the Greens got a majority next election, they could not do what needs to be done. Still too many people will resist change, and this resistance will be encouraged and financed – by vested interests.

Think Globally, Act Locally

As a result, I’ve gone local. Leadership is going to have to come from the grassroots, from us, from those who understand the reality and are willing to take some action. I believe that every village, town, city, and region should create a Transition Initiative to get off oil.

This is acting locally, and it is vitally important for your survival. Local resilience is ‘in,’ and for good reason. When oil prices go up, imports of everything – including food – are going to get more expensive and harder to get. If you’re already shopping at the farmer’s market, for example, you have helped support a local farmer who will now support you as options in the supermarkets get scarcer and pricier.

This is my new Wise Action Plan:

1. Start or join a Transition Initiative in your area.
2. Reskill.
3. Develop personal self-reliance, which includes everything from starting a garden to insulating your house.

If we’re lucky and good, these local movements will take off, multiply like viruses, and infect the planet. These local movements will bond together and require their governments to do the right thing – to protect us. They will do this not by lobbying or influence-peddling, but by sheer strength of numbers.

The purpose of this site is to find a ‘green’ lever big enough to move the world to sustainability. I titled it Go Green or Die because, well, that is true, we must, and becauseI thought it rather catchy.

That said, I have come to realise that people will not see climate change and peak oil as the crises they are unless and until a social tipping point is reached, where likely we will go from denial to near-panic. Various things can push us toward this tipping point; this site is my own small attempt, as are my The Way Home presentations, but we are not there yet and we are already late getting started on addressing these crises.

And that brings me to the main point. We cannot count upon governments or corporations – large organizations led by people with a strong vested interest in business-as-usual – to wake up and take action on climate change and peak oil in time.

I have come to accept this, and I won’t say I found it easy. I ran as as Green Party of Canada candidate in the last federal election, and as a Green Party of British Columbia candidate in the last provincial election. Clearly I recently thought that action at the national or provincial level was possible; I no longer think so.

It would be a long story to explain all my reasons why, but perhaps a small, real example will help illustrate. In the last provincial election, Lana Popham was one of my opponents as the NDP candidate. She seemed as ‘green’ as me; in talking with her, she clearly understood the threat posed by climate change. Her family runs an organic vineyard. She cycles everywhere.

I nearly withdrew to give her a clear run, but was persuaded otherwise. She won anyway. What has been the result? Her party formed the Opposition, and made her Agriculture Critic. The leaders of the NDP have her spending her time and energy and goodwill campaigning to get bicycles exempted from a new tax.

And that is just a tiny example of why change is unlikely to come from above. It rarely does, really; those entrenched naturally oppose change.

I came to realise that it is up to us. “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” as the song says. We must at least work to save local areas as best we can, to make them sustainable and self-reliant. Done alone, that will not ultimately stop or save anyone from climate change. It will only buffer against the coming oil shock and allow life to continue in a somewhat civilised manner.

The best route I’ve found so far is Transition Initiative, which every town and city and region should be doing. It’s a grassroots movement to make the local region more self-reliant, less dependent upon oil. There is no head office, no Executive Director. There are only guiding principles and local examples.

This is all a long way of saying that I’ve joined my local Transition Initiative. That is where the action is going to come from. The movement has caught on and has spread like wildfire, which gives me hope for wider action. It would be wonderful if ultimately there were thousands and thousands of Transition Towns, and these millions upon millions of people joined forces to end dependence on fossil fuels.

This journey has allowed me to create The Way Home presentation that ends on a positive, optimistic note. I was trained by Al Gore to deliver the An Inconvenient Truth presentation, which I did 40-or-so times to a few thousand people in total. One thing that always bothered me was the lack of realistic solutions offered. I don’t mean just the “Change your lightbulbs” ’solution,’ but even writing to your elected representative is largely a waste of time at this point.

Transition Initiatives do offer hope. I am going to re-do this site in the next few weeks to reflect the path we must take. Yes, we must ‘go green or die.’ But that message is not inspiring change. In an attempt to communicate the extent of the threat, it inspires fear.

What we need is the truth, which is that things are bad. We have not responded appropriately to warnings from experts, and we are going to pay a price for that. Ok, so what do we do? Reality must be faced, and realistic action must be taken. That is the focus of the Transition Initiative, and also of the new look of this site, which will become The Way Home.

According to a recent poll and just about everyone I’ve spoken with, none of the major Canadian political parties is inspiring or trustworthy. No wonder voter turnout is so low. This is no surprise to me; I speculated this was the case months ago. More importantly, I suggested that this is not simply an indictment of the Liberals or the Conservatives, but also very much of the NDP and Greens.

Given how little faith Canadians have in the two big parties, the NDP and Greens should be rising in the polls. That they are not shows that Canadians put even less trust in the small parties. The Greens and NDP are squandering an opportunity to shine that they may not get again any time soon. If they were communicating any sort of inspiring vision or leadership, they would be gaining a steady stream of supporters, but they are not.

The problem could, and probably does, lie with the leaders and their cronies.

If I were Jack Layton…

I would offer the following to the Canadian people:

“Dear supporters and candidates of all parties, and of course independents, the NDP would like to suggest a practical way to make Parliament work, to stabilize our economy, and to do our part in fighting climate change. We must have the integrity, the wisdom, and the courage to face our problems squarely and honestly.

“Our way is not made easier by a diminishing world oil supply, which we are so dependent upon, and a steadily degrading life support system, the “environment.” Top scientists have been warning us for some time, and we now have little time to prepare. In fact, climate change is already happening and it is already bad, from Arctic sea ice melting and polar bears doomed to extinction – except in zoos – to millions and millions of trees killed by pine beetles.

“Climate change is costing us in every way. Economically and socially, the pine beetles alone have destroyed billions of dollars of timber and countless jobs, leaving devastated towns in BC – and it looks like they’ve crossed the Rockies to decimate the rest of our Boreal pine forests. Worldwide fish stocks are in rapid decline, expected to collapse by 2050 – if not sooner. That means skyrocketing fish prices followed by very expensive, grain-fed, farmed fish if you want it. We are about duplicate the East Coast cod fishery collapse on a global scale. Fish is a major and important part of our diet and our world. As we harm the environment, we wound ourselves.

“We know all these things are going on, but we just don’t know what to do about it. It all seems so overwhelming and out of our control, whether it’s a force of nature or corporate-dominated governments that have forgotten who they represent. And many people are afraid to vote for the “socialist” NDP. Well, we’re actually more like the Social Democrats in some highly successful countries in Europe, like Denmark or Germany. Six weeks of vacation per year doesn’t seem to have slowed their economies down much, and greening their economies is working out pretty well for them.

“But we are putting all that aside. We’re only proposing action on areas where we are sure we have significant agreement with the majority of Canadians. We won’t try to impose six week vacations on you – unless we get a majority government. But we are suggesting cooperation on areas of agreement so that Canada responds appropriately to the various crises we are facing.

“We all know that the climate is changing, and this is going to be a problem for us. Same with the fisheries collapsing, and ocean “dead zones,” and the spreading of deserts, and pollution and overpopulation. We have known for a long time that these would someday become emergencies if not stopped. “Someday” is now.

“And unfortunately, we’re not as economically well-off as we once were for dealing with problems.

“Last year saw an oil price spike that contributed to our current serious recession, and which was triggered by a crooked banking system in the United States. Millions upon millions of Americans have been foreclosed upon. Millions more have gone bankrupt, and the most common cause of bankruptcies in the US has for years been health costs for insured people. There are great and wonderful things about the United States that we admire, but American-style capitalism has some serious flaws. Our banking regulations aren’t perfect, but they protected us from the worst of the excesses on Wall Street. Our health care system isn’t perfect, but it works.

“’If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ And if it does need fixing, or even just an update, learn from examples that work well. Use proven techniques. Learn from success.

“With that in mind, Canada is lagging Europe badly, and we are not preparing for the new green economy. China and India are well ahead of us when it comes to green technology. We are not falling behind. We are behind. This is not acceptable. We cannot sell raw resources and expect to have a developed-world standard of living forever. That is doubly true if the resource is non-renewable, because it’s a one-time-only bonanza.

“The reason we’re lagging the coming economy is because we are not taking climate change and the end of cheap oil seriously, and these other nations are. Other countries see the danger and they are taking appropriate action to protect themselves and to minimize the damage. We are not. As a result, they are building a greener economy, which turns out to be more robust in the face of recession, and we are clinging to the American Way.

“Let’s be proud of the Canadian Way. America is not perfect and there are some things we do better here, from a better and cheaper health care system to better regulated and therefore more robust banks. More than that, we have been leaders in the fight for truth and justice.

“I have great faith in Canadians to do what needs to be done in times of trouble, because of that shining example set by an earlier generation in the Great Wars. They sacrificed to defeat fascism, the horror that a Nazi-dominated world would have been. We face threats of our own, and we must rise. We must have the courage of our forebears to defend ourselves from the problems we face.

“I offer this to all citizens of Canada:

“Let it be known that the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) agrees to strategic candidacies in every riding in Canada, with the purpose of forming a government that will commit to accomplish the following and no more:

• Open government: No more secret meetings or buried reports. All minutes, budgets, and expenditures down to the lowest level to be published on the Internet in real time. All civil service reports and statistics published immediately upon completion, with data, and untouched by political influence.

• Ban lobbying: Forbid anyone employed by the people of Canada, directly or indirectly as subcontractors or other means, to engage in lobbying for a period of 5 years following the end of public service. Similarly, lobbyists may not work in government for 5 years from the end of their lobbying job.

• Re-direct existing subsidies and all economic stimulus money to the measures below, accepting the current deficit level until unemployment drops below 5%. Convert the GST to a greenhouse gas tax and redirect to building green economic stability. Build to a surplus, pay off the debt, and leave a surplus should bad economic times come again.

• Rebuild our manufacturing by mandating that necessities must be produced here, especially food, energy, and the ability to get around the country. We should not be dependent upon other nations for our needs; it diminishes us. It weakens us. Luxuries we can import. Our food and energy we must not.

• Move oil-producing provinces to energy-producing provinces: The prairies have plenty of sun and wind, for example. Alberta and Saskatchewan can sell electricity instead of oil, and keep the high-paying jobs and good economic times. Imagine if former Prime Minister Chretien had, after committing Canada to Kyoto, redirected tar sands subsidies to green energy; the prairie provinces would be energy superpowers in clean, renewable energy now. Any government since could have done it. All have failed us by not even considering it.

• Rebuild the Canadian National Railway. Not the company; the once-great service from sea-to-sea – that was a condition for acceptance of Confederation for some provinces. The Edmonton-Calgary and golden horseshoe-to-Montreal legs should start immediately and all parts should be built in Canada. We need the expertise and the jobs – and we should be experts in getting around a large, sparsely-populated country.

• Change the building code to mandate net-zero homes – within one year. We have to get moving, and we can learn from the examples of Great Britain and France, which already have such codes mandated. How would you like to pay nothing for heat and hot water? It can be done and is being done.

• Have each city and region perform a “Self-reliance Audit” and create and begin implementing a “Self-reliance Plan”; the purpose is to insulate us from oil price spikes, food or other shortages, or any disruptions to our security.

• Waste Not, Want Not: When a biodegradable, reusable, or recyclable product exists and is within 10% of the cost of the current solution, then all products of that type must be biodegradable, reusable, or recyclable. This drives us to a much less wasteful society, which in the long run will also be less costly. Costs of alternatives will drop rapidly once mainstreamed. And we have the savings from less energy used, pollution-free industries, lower health care costs, and so on.

• Reduce crime and repeat offenders by instituting rehabilitative justice for non-violent offenders. Bring back work farms so the taxpayer is not paying for the offender’s food, but they are providing for themselves. And have them grow the food for the Parliamentary dining room, too.

“To our knowledge all of the above would fit with the Green, Bloc, Liberal, or Progressive Conservative approaches – and more importantly, are what Canadians want. It makes Canada and Canadians more secure and more prosperous. It stabilizes the economy. It is the wise course and it is what we need to start doing yesterday.

“Let’s not waste another moment on business as usual. Canadians should be leaders, not followers – or worse, ignored. That is where the big parties have led us. It is time for a change, to ensure government protects the people first. It is time to do our part on the world stage, and at home.

“We offer this to the other parties, to individual candidates, and to all Canadians. We face threats, crises, and we must rise to the occasion. We are sincere about putting Canada before party. We will work with any citizen, candidate, or party that is willing to do the same.”

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They’ll never do it, of course. And so they will deservedly continue to sit in nowhere land in the polls with the Greens.

Radical right wingers, or perhaps whingers is more appropriate, always cry that their right to free speech is being impinged when they are shouted down. However, I say shout down, shut up, and drive out people who actively seek to promote hatred and divide us against each other. We have seen the results when we allow such people to speak freely.

Ann Coulter’s speech at the University of Ottawa was cancelled last after protesters shouted her down. Here are comments from a redditor who was there. And now she’s going to file a human rights complaint.

For those who don’t know, Ann Coulter is not a decent person. She’s part-shock jock and part-racist, frequently attempting to divide the United States into hard right and left, and then to set the two against each other. She has stated that Canadians should consider themselves lucky not to have been invaded for refusing to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

I say good riddance to a dangerous fool.

They were nice enough about it – told him they really just came to look at his car. (He has a Ferrari.) They had left a card earlier for him, from some constable in the Saanich Police Department, asking him to contact them. Brad* hadn’t seen it until I gave it to him that evening, when a few of us came by to talk and play some pool.

But it’s not that nice, is it, when you discover that some police force, somewhere, is monitoring your email and has detected something they regard as potentially dangerous.

In this case, Brad had sent an email to a group of six people, including me, that mentioned blockading the tar sands. The cops had it with them, and they had some questions.  But my question is, how did they get that email? It went to six people; all say Of course they didn’t forward it.

The officers (three of them; perhaps they were worried they were dealing with an insane jihadist) did not mention a warrant. Does this mean that Canadian email is run through filters – put in place by whom? I don’t recall any Act of Parliament authorising domestic spying on Canadians.

And finally, why are the municipal police coming to the door? I am pretty sure the Saanich police department is not monitoring Brad’s emails. That would come from the federal police or a spy agency: the RCMP or CSIS.  Perhaps that agency wanted to send a message. As someone who received Brad’s email, message received.

You’ll notice that this site has a GGoD page, on which is a statement and a manifesto. Some of us on the planet have noticed that a few of us are making a fabulous profit at the expense of the rest of our lives, that they are smart people doing very foolish things. They are wrecking our future. There are seven original members of that group, of which I am one, who exchanged a number of emails discussing ways to stop climate change.

Two of those members mentioned, in emails, that blockading the tar sands, would certainly send a message. No action has been taken in that regard; ideas were simply being discussed.  None of us would have forwarded an email containing those ideas without telling the rest of us. So I believe, and I have asked the group to confirm.

That leaves electronic eavesdropping. Apparently, if you mention “blockade” and “tar sands” in a email,, that is picked up by some police organisation’s email filters somewhere – Canada or the U.S.? – and you may be visited in your home by the police.

Disturbing. That emails are almost certainly being monitored, and that local cops are being sent out to intimidate the citizenry into silence.

UPDATE 1: Brad emailed to say:

I can’t imagine how they got a hold of that email but the implications are certainly stunning and very concerning as it appears that the authorities can access any information which in any way might challenge their authority or threaten the evil and corrupt industries they are (indirectly) in bed with!

UPDATE 2: To those commenting on the apparent hypocrisy of owning a Ferrari and being green, Brad started going green quite recently. He has been mostly vegan for many years; that ought to ‘pay’ for a few of his Sunday afternoon drives this summer.

He hadn’t really considered climate change until recently. Less than 10 years ago I was driving an Infiniti QX4: I didn’t know anything about “global warming” or peak oil at the time, and would have spouted the usual denier propaganda had you asked me. Now that Brad is realizing the predicament we face, what does he do with the Ferrari? Sell it? Then it’s still on the road. Crush it? What?!

Except for people who have been hippies since birth, we all go through a stage where our dawning green awareness leads to the realisation that so much of what we do is harming someone and/or the planet. At that point we all have to make choices about what and when we will cut back – considering that almost nobody else is.

UPDATE 3: Changed paragraph 3 and added 4 and 5 for clarity.

*Name changed, not that it matters at this point.

It is common for people who are concerned about looming catastrophes like climate change and peak oil to appeal to the humanity of those doing the damage. They think that, if only they could have a word with people like former U.S. President Bush or current Canadian Prime Minister Harper, climate action obstructors both, they could get through with an appeal about caring for their own children. This is highly unlikely, and more importantly, is a waste of precious time.

It is not that these people do not care about their children, but that they have a different morality than you and I. We like to think that, deep down, everyone is just like us. This is a dangerous delusion, and it should be clear to anyone who observes human behaviour even briefly. There are some obvious examples, including psychopaths who murder others for reasons we don’t understand, like Jeffrey Dahmer who murdered and ate young men, or Clifford Olsen who was a serial child murderer, or the freaks who go into a school and start shooting. These people are not like us, they clearly have a different morality, and it matters little whether it is due to nature or nurture: Either way, we must protect ourselves from their dangerous behaviour first, psychoanalyse them later.

There are less obvious examples; the documentary The Corporation has pointed out that corporations behave like sociopaths; they have no social conscience. Their CEOs are responsible for and profit greatly from this behaviour, so I think it is fair to call them antisocial to such an extent that they are a danger to the rest of us.

In fact, I think it is a fair argument to say that most people who seek power are not like you and me. Power comes not only through politics, but also through climbing the corporate ladder, accumulating vast wealth, aligning yourself with powerful people, or murdering others. People who lust for power operate from a predator morality, in which might makes right. In practice, this means that whatever they can get away with is morally acceptable.

Most people concerned about climate change or social justice simply reject this. They want to believe that these people, who are doing clearly immoral acts, can be reasoned with, that their innate humanity can be appealed to. This is delusional. These people are ignoring the psychopath’s behaviour and projecting their own values upon him.

The same thing occurs in reverse. The neocons and lunatic right are famous for projecting their values on the rest of us. Because they lie, they assume we must, too. Because they seek power, we must be, too. In fact, they see life as a battle for supremacy, and they don’t intend to lose. That is why they see global warming as a “socialist scheme“, an attempt to impose world government – an attempt to do what they are trying to do, which is establish a New World Order with them on top.

Because they see life as a struggle for power, they care for their children in ways that reflect this. They try to make lots of money and attain high-status positions, and encourage their children to do the same. They also don’t want the rest of us following that path because it means more competition, so that’s why school funding gets cut, welfare gets cut, and so on.

And the reason they do not care about climate change is because it contradicts their base value system in many ways. They are not interested in cooperation, which they see as weakness. To power-seekers, there is a clear hierarchy based on power, and one’s power is based on one’s political, economic, or military might. Cooperation, on the other hand, is a group of more-or-less equals working toward a common purpose. No power-seeker is going to do this for someone lower in the food chain.

I believe the differences in behaviour and morality are explained by how we seek security. Security is the greatest human need: None of us wants to die; we all want to live well for as long as possible. That is only possible with security of food and person, freedom from health issues, and so on. Some of these we can do more about that others.

Serial killers are, in their twisted way, seeking some control over their life by destroying others. Power-seekers look for security by dominating others – and this is a time-proven method of achieving security. You will live longer and better if you’re the top dog. Cooperators create security through stable communities, fair laws, and so on.

Attempts to appeal to the humanity of a high-level denier are a waste of time that we do not have. People who seek security through power…believe that security is obtained through achieving power, through being the Alpha wolf. When someone they see as a sheep attempts to persuade them of the joys of cooperation and being a good citizen, they do what wolves do with sheep.

There is a campaign right now in my province of BC to ensure that the new Harmonised Sales Tax (HST) does not apply to bicycles. The HST is replacing the federal and provincial sales taxes, and bicycles, apparently, are currently exempt from Provincial Sales Tax (PST) but will not be under the HST. One of the two major parties in BC is running a campaign to gain an exemption for bicycles from the HST.

And this, it seems to me, is at the heart of the NDP’s loss of moral authority. The federal NDP party is no better, having not long ago campaigned hard against bank fees. Both the federal and provincial NDP parties claim to ‘get’ the danger of climate change, and frequently complain bitterly that the Green Party is taking voters from them.

But…they clearly don’t ‘get’ it.

I understand that we want to encourage more people to ride bikes. It’s good for their health, it reduces traffic congestion, and it cuts greenhouse gas emissions. And of course nobody except banks likes bank fees.

But rather than fighting for a special exemption of a few percent for bicycles, why not fight against the subsidies to fossil-fueled vehicles? If you’re serious about climate change, if you’re serious about improving health through reducing pollution, and if you don’t think we should be subsidising fossil industries, you should be working for streetcars, and building codes for shopping malls that allow electric buses to drop passengers inside the mall, instead of across the parking lot, and pedestrian and bike-friendly neighbourhoods.

If the HST adds a few percent to the cost of a bike – that should be no big deal for most people. And bike riders use roads, too, do they not? Are those not paid for with taxes?

If you’re concerned about social justice, then you should be fighting to ensure that bicycles are not such a major expense that paying a few percent more discourages it.

They are also standing in the way of going green, which isn’t helping their credibility. I ran against Lana Popham in my riding. Lana was the NDP candidate, I was the Green Party candidate. I had a chance to talk with her a bit during the campaign, and Lana does seem to ‘get’ the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

I even considered withdrawing as a candidate and endorsing her – if she would cross the floor and become a Green MLA if and when her own party didn’t follow-through on various green promises. I didn’t do it; the Green Party leader persuaded me not to, believing it would be utterly misinterpreted by the media and public, and she was probably right.

Regardless, the outcome is that a small-g green NDPer was elected…and that did nothing to green the NDP or raise awareness of the danger of climate change. The opposite has happened. The NDP has Lana fighting to keep bicycles a few dollars cheaper in an attempt to woo the cycling crowd, rather than proposing realistic solutions to deeper problems, like why we have to give people a discount of a few percent before they can or will buy a bicycle. Or talking about the fact that climate change will wipe us off the planet, regardless of the final cost of bicycles.

The same problem applies nationally – look at the time the federal NDP spend making a lot of noise about bank fees. OK, nobody likes paying bank fees, but if you can’t take it any more the credit unions will be delighted to have you. And ultimately, when you claim we’re facing ruin due to climate change, devoting your party to fight bank fees utterly trivialises this claim, doesn’t it?

With the federal Conservatives and Liberals at high levels of unpopularity and in the middle of a bankster-induced recession, the NDP (and the Greens, but that’s another matter) should be shooting up in the polls, but they’re stuck at <15%. There’s a good reason for that: The NDP has whittled away at their own credibility and their moral authority until they’ve become just another political party.

They have no vision, and as a result they chase bank fees rather focusing on actual crises. They pander to cyclists by looking to save a few percent on the cost of a bike. Why was the NDP in favour of bailing out the American auto companies? It wasn’t to save the jobs, it was to save the unions. The jobs could have been saved by putting those workers to work building electric streetcars and windmills. That would also have helped with carbon emissions and greening the economy.

I am no longer affiliated with any political party, and I can’t imagine what would induce me to run again, but I will say this: If you want a green economy, you’re not going to get it by voting NDP. They claim to ‘get it,’ but their actions speak volumes otherwise. And they continue to waste good candidates like Lana Popham in trivial causes when we face real crises.

There’s a lot being said about climate change, peak oil, and other looming catastrophes. Let’s be honest, none of these is helpful and all are potentially dangerous to life as we know it. Some years ago I moved from climate sceptic/denier to climate change warrior, after I investigated and discovered the reality of the threat. Corruption in the financial markets and in our democracies is also quite dangerous, as we have experienced in the current recession caused by crooked bankers and their bought politicians. But where climate change is a long-term threat, and we can stagger along for some time bearing the weight of the banksters, only peak oil looks very likely to deal a mortal blow soon.

Let’s go through these threats one-at-a-time.

Climate change

In brief, we are adapted to this climate, meaning everything from our agriculture to the countless cities at sea level, and any significant change is potentially catastrophic. Many vital crops stop growing above certain temperatures, and even the small amount of climate change we have seen so far is causing droughts and crop failures. A sea level rise of 1m (~3 feet) will displace 100 million people – and the latest projections are for a sea level increase of that magnitude this century. If temperatures rise sufficiently, and we are not doing anything to stop it, most of humanity and most species will be wiped from the face of the earth.

But devastating as climate change will ultimately be, it is not an immediate threat to us personally or to civilisation. (If you live in one of the developing countries, this is not true; bad things are happening now. The slaughter in Darfur was caused in part by the drying up of Lake Chad, which in turn was partly caused by global warming.) The major damage is expected to begin in 40-50 years, as displaced people move into crowded areas and turf wars begin, as water becomes in short supply and water wars begin, as many people realise their lives are going to be destroyed and they get angry about it.

Still, we are wired to respond to immediate threats that we can experience with our senses, and climate change has not passed that threshold yet for most people. They might be able to grasp the danger if it was presented graphically and if there were not paid fossil fuel company shills spreading misinformation and lies.

Pollution

Here I’m going to lump in everything from ocean dead zones (caused largely by excess agricultural chemicals) to acid rain to the hole in the ozone layer. All are bad news and contribute to the breakdown of the web of life that sustains us. Some we have actually taken constructive action on. None of the remaining are immediate threats, nor will be perceived as such.

While cancer rates and the number of children with asthma are believed to be directly tied to pollution, neither threatens to cause a mass collapse or revolt.

Overpopulation

Population becomes overpopulation when that population lives unsustainably. Population overshoot is certainly fatal; it has brought down civilisations in the past that exceeded the carrying capacity of their local environment. It is also a very sneaky problem, because everything can appear fine one year followed by utter collapse and a die-back the next year. There is a famous and chilling story of reindeer on St. Matthew Island that illustrates this. No doubt the ‘denier’ reindeer were saying right up until the end, “Everything is going great! Our population continues to expand, and our GDP (in the form of new reindeer, moss eaten, and poop produced) has just set another record!”

In our case, we have exceeded the ability of the entire Earth to support us, at least in the manner we currently live. We are burning through ‘natural capital’ to keep the party going; we are like the person who appears to be living the high life but in reality is financing it all on credit cards. Sooner or later, the credit is gone and the bills come due.

Many have said that the ‘real problem’ we face is simply too many people: If there were only 100 million humans, we could all live like Americans. However, there are 6.5 billion of us and population is expected to peak at 9 billion around 2050, assuming one of the other limits mentioned in this article doesn’t slow us down first. The real problem is that we are living beyond our ecological means and this has caused most of the other problems.

Resource Scarcity

We are burning through the finite resources of the earth at a fantastic rate and in very short-sighted ways. We expend enormous amounts of energy to dig up various metals, for example, use much more energy to make them into something useful to us – and then re-bury them. Again, though, except for one particular resource, none of the lithium or uranium or topsoil or other natural capital we are drawing down is going to bring civilisation to a crashing halt soon.

Peak Oil

This brings us to oil, that one ubiquitous resource without which our civilisation will end abruptly, and most of us will live much diminished and shorter lives. The reason is that oil is literally in everything in one form or another; our society is utterly dependent upon it. Our food is utterly dependent upon it.

Once we have extracted half of all available oil, rather obviously supply begins to decrease. A reduction in supply means an increase in prices, and because demand is rising, those price increases are going to be sharp and devastating. There was a pre-recession spike up to $147 per barrel, and the price now sits around $80 per barrel, or four times what it was just a few years ago.

It appears that we have hit peak oil, or will very shortly. It had to happen at some point; there was only so much oil.

Because demand for oil is increasing while supply is decreasing, the price of everything containing oil in any form – which is virtually everything – will rise. And because oil is fundamental to our civilisation, any reduction in supply must either be replaced in some way or accompanied by a scaling back of civilisation. As there are no viable replacements for oil and because we have not taken steps to ‘get off oil,’ there is going to be a nasty crash that few will escape.

Fear

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: pointing out real threats is not scaremongering. Crying wolf is OK if there really is a wolf. Riding across the region warning people “The British are coming!” is the right thing to do if it’s true. And if climate change, peak oil, and other problems are real, then only a fool calls facing up to reality scaremongering.

Fear will not kill us. It can paralyse us, but that would be no different than our current state, in which we are not responding to legitimate threats. Fear can also galvanise us to action. If you see a bear charging toward you, fear would be a normal and even useful reaction as your body is flooded with fight-or-flight hormones.

Right now we face multiple crises but we dismiss them as problems. Climate change really is that bad. We are consuming the finite resources of the earth and shitting out pollution into our air, our water, and our soil. we have built our civilisation on oil and have not prepared to live without it. Consequences are to be expected. And while some people see this, many do not.

Fear is a legitimate emotion to feel when one looks at the future for your children – even for yourself. If peak oil is now, could this recession be due to high oil prices? Could this be a permanent recession because the price of oil is only going up from now on?

Peak oil has begun and we have not prepared at all. We should rightly be feeling angry at those who have deceived us about the dangers we face, and at our supposed leaders. They have betrayed all of us.

We need to begin a crash program to ‘get off oil’ immediately. We are in a predicament, which is different from a problem because problems have solutions. Predicaments may not. Turn your fear into anger and do something useful with it.

We face a legitimate crisis: the end of the age of oil.

Suggested books if you want to learn more

You would be wise to educate yourself about the reality of these problems. Do not take the word of politicians or talking heads, many of whom are paid by vested interests like the oil companies. Don’t believe me, for that matter, until you do your own investigation back to original, i.e., scientific, sources. I am confident that when you do, you will agree that I am representing reality fairly.

The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age well describes the problem of peak oil, which is our most pressing threat.

Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (New Society Publishers) discusses the realities mentioned above, namely that as a result of living unsustainably we now face shortages: peak oil, peak fish, peak topsoil, and so on.

Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming is an in-depth, impeccably sourced dissection of the lies spewed by vested interests to protect their profits at everyone’s expense.

Happy reading. If you don’t know, you cannot prepare. And if you are not prepared, your chances at surviving a downturn, setback, or collapse of any sort are greatly diminished.

Peak oil means that we have used half of all the available oil on the planet. From that point forward, oil will become scarcer, harder to extract – and more expensive.

Peak oil wise men say to expect oil price volatility with an overall upward trend. Consider these signs:

• The spike to $147 per barrel in October 2008, just before the banksters crashed the economy
• The price of oil is ~$80 per barrel in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, or 400% more than it was just a few years ago.

Note that there were recessions after the oil price spikes in 1973 and 1979.

The suburban foreclosure rate is higher than the urban rate, attributed to transportation costs which are 17% of the average American’s income, undoubtedly higher for many suburbanites commuting from work to Wal-Mart to McMansion in an SUV. The suburban foreclosure rate is a probable consequence of peak oil.

There will be other consequences, too. If the wise peak oil folks are again correct, we can expect:

• Modern agri-business dependence on oil means food prices will increase
• The increasing cost of transportation will cause everything, and especially imports, to rise in price

I have predicted that the outcome of these two is that our current recession is permanent. With food, transportation, and other costs permanently higher, there will be a reduction in overall employment because more of the family budget will go to these necessities.

Offsetting this drop in employment to an unknown amount will be new farm jobs (at very low pay) and likely a throttling of immigration.

Learning more about peak oil

The following sites are excellent on the subject of peak oil:

• The Oil Drum: Discussions about energy and our future
• Future Scenarios: Mapping the cultural implications of peak oil and climate change
• The Archdruid Report: Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society

There are also some great books that explain peak oil and its consequences clearly:
James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century pretty much sums it up.

Kunstler has also written a novel, World Made by Hand, in an attempt to convey what it would be like for those living in a post-peak oil world.

John Michael Greer’s The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age also does a great job explaining peak oil and why we don’t see it: we have all bought into the myth of unending progress, rather than accepting that much of our progress has come by burning oil.