An Appeal to Canada’s Leadership to Help Save the
Planet
These are my own personal thoughts on
As a fairly well known live music fan at www.ottawabluesjazz.ca many times facing the music at a favourite live
music venue can be great. I’ve enjoyed this kind of facing many times. This view
involves a more serious facing that either now or in the future must take place
in my view. Leaders who choose to wear both blinders and ear plugs to what our
planet is facing do us no favours. They simply delay
the inevitable.
There was a time when
Canada didn't wait for ‘the giant of democracy’
to decide that South African apartide was wrong and
do something about it. We spearheaded action that resulted in Nelson Mandela’s
final release from his 27 year imprisonment.
Canada didn't wait for some president of some now
uncertain democracy to decide it was finally time to fight for freedom while one
of the most evil empires in world existence for then already two years by 1941
had enslaved countries and began its campaign of genocide or as the world in its
current aversion to such ‘dirty word’ usage, calls it ‘ethnic cleansing' of 6
million European Jews.
Canada was there fighting from 1939
until the U.S.'s earlier ‘nine-eleven’ experience at Pearl Harbour
finally woke the giant as it also did in 2001 spurring action however inappropriate
involving an evil but fairly toothless dictator and world-effect wannabe the U.S.
once funded for its own reasons in Iraq as other dictatorships have been supported
in U.S. interests.
Canada didn't just sit back and follow the U.S. blindly
into the obvious wrong headed, misdirected and self-destructive war against phantom
weapons of mass destruction that's not only devastated Iraq and millions of Iraqi
people but threatens to undermine the very principles of justice and freedom the
U.S. itself was founded on by much wiser fathers.
Canada didn't wait for the 'beacon
of democracy, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness' who incidentally is still
a signatory hold-out although apparently complying when Canada got over 120 countries
to commit to a treaty to ban land mine usage. We led the world there.
So far, we're helping lead the world as the U.S.
is in undermining the Kyoto protocol. We refuse to commit to targets with the
excuse that others should commit before we do. That's not the kind of leadership
we've shown in the past. We need to lead by example; not by misdirection and obfuscation.
These are only some few examples of where Canada
can take effective leadership as it has in the past and such action has invested
in the well respected reputation we’ve earned from the world possibly now to be
lost through leaderless inaction as a Bush follower rather than leader when the
planet needs more leaders and fewer followers.
The planet needs some leadership in fighting global
warming and the effects it will have on Canada, the U.S. and probably first the
third world. So, where are we in the kind of leadership we’ve shown in the past?
We’re a part of the Denial Duo and letting the Chief of Denial pull our strings
in that country’s short-term myopic oil and energy interests.
We're playing follow-the-leader to a leader whose
shown his country to be one that too often awaits disaster before acting and as
in the case of nine-eleven not only attacks the wrong enemy but sets the stage
for even greater disasters to be faced on its own shores by its own citizens in
the years to come.
The War on Terror is a failure. The war in Iraq
cannot be won. Millions of citizens leaving an essentially ‘occupied’ country
to escape the effects of its would be ‘saviors’ is only
one indication of a badly planned and executed international policy. Only by showing
the better way is there any possibility of some hope if it's not already too late.
So, Prime Minister, the planet needs a pace setter,
not someone who's bought into one of George Bush’s disastrous denial specialties.
Let's lead! Following the U.S. is a recipe for disaster.
It's clear in Iraq. It will become even more clear
in world consequences all too soon in George's legacy there and in the rest of
the world.
The time is now!
Listen to the experts. Listen to those other countries
that have already seen what there is to lose by denial and inaction. Accept the
incontrovertible facts now known that have been denied too long in the past by
people such as Bush and his oil and coal interest influentials and primarily short
term financial considerations without regard to long-term planetary implications!
Take action before it's too late and Canada increasingly
becomes even more a major part of the problem instead of a founder of the solutions
that can save us and the planet. With effective leadership, we have all the intelligence
and technology we need to show the world the way as we often have demonstrated
before rather than contribute to an already most serious problem.
The ultimate cost will be much more than is being
avoided now in the short term once the disaster hits.
With all of the ingenuity and inventiveness Canadians
have shown we have so many times in the past, surely the answers are there and
Canada can not only contribute but profit by the solutions that are waiting to
be discovered.
Leadership is the answer, Mr. Prime Minister, in
the kind of positive leadership Canadians have come to expect
Take the example of earlier Prime Ministers who
took the lead. Be our own country; not a subsidiary of one who has made so many
disastrous mistakes in the past and continues to make similar mistakes now.
Where
Canada could show some leadership, where is 'B. S.' Baird in helping to become
part of the solution instead of part of the problem with his 'you don't and we
won't' philosophy when he could be supporting a Canadian entrepreneurial solution
being sold internationally?
Click the link to see an example of what we could
be doing. The content may be done humourously, but the impoct is serious if the
needed leadership is abdicated.
http://www.slide.com/r/c0wMpv6r4j_i7hxOQ-t7tymGYVXSOpLQ
If anyone wishes to express their own personal
opinion on this, for leadership consideration, please write whoever is your federal
member.
http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html#mp
You may just be able to make a difference here
or by taking David Suzuki's Nature Challenge at
this link: Nature
Challenge
Some other possibilities to consider:
International Action on Global Warming
An Inconvenient Truth including
10 tips any of us can do ourselves without waiting for political action.
This critical problem that's not
going to go away without some very committed political intervention
locally,
provincially, nationally and internationally can be very daunting to anyone who
cares for both
ourselves and those we pass the planet on to.
Our political leaders are no less
daunted as we might be. Some in politics who may well normally operate on a short
term horizon prefer to deny what we face rather than come to grips with it. Unfortunately,
that's not
helpful to us and the future we face.
If our political leaders are so
daunted, what can we do? It's best we do what little we can while those of us
who can may be able to influence political commitment to more significant action.
Small steps as suggested in the 10 tips in An Inconvenient Truth all
will help and are a start from our own grass roots level.
Besides that, all we can do is
come up with our own ideas, put them into practice and pass them on
to others
and more than anything let our municipal, provincial and federal politicians know
that we
consider the environment a high priority for our health, our children's,
our survivors and the planet's
ability to support life as we know it.
Jim Roy
Ottawa Blues, Jazz & Swing Guide
bluesandjazzguy@ncf.ca www.ottawabluesjazz.ca
NOTE: I have
no particular association with any of the links listed. They are provided merely
as a guide to
the possibilities one can find by a web search of global warming
and climate change as I did.