Dear Editor
Prime Minister Harper recently talked of the importance of dealing with the current economic crisis to prevent the world economy from returning to a recession. The tone and emotion in his voice clearly showed he really was more concerned about the economy than anything else. How unfortunate.
Most scientists and environmentalists would say climate change poses the greatest threat to us today and the future, yet our current political leadership for the most part are far more concerned about the economy.
Yes the economy is important and people having jobs and earning a living is important and the economy(under the management of the right wing freetraders who have exported 90 per cent of North America's manufacturing jobs off shore) has become a sick patient with ever increasing debt for government and citizens. The only way for our current "consumer" based economy to thrive is to consume, yet the corporations have eliminated many well paying jobs. The consumers, are still expected to consume by borrowing. Real incomes for working people have declined by almost 25 per cent since the 1970s.
Today, just seven per cent of the GDP of the United States is based on manufacturing, most of that would be the auto industry (saved from being wiped out by government intervention) and military production (which under U.S. law must be domestic production). In the United States 93 per cent of the economy is now based on services (hotel and restaurant staff) and financial services (the antics of Goldman Sachs and others selling investments in their many forms bordering on fraud in many cases).
In the 1890s there was an economic depression in Canada and the United States. Today hardly anyone knows this. That is because an economic event is temporary, it passes, things recover. Another event in the 1890s was the extinction of the passenger pigeon. The last one died in a zoo in 1901. Almost everyone today knows the story of the passenger pigeon. That is because this ecological event was forever.
I recently read about the extinction of the passenger pigeon in Birds of North America first published in 1917.The events of the extinction were still fresh for the writers. In the 1890s people saw less passenger pigeons in their respective states and talked about it. It was even discussed in many state legislatures about creating some law to protect the birds. But there was no overall awareness about the true extent of the collapse of the passenger pigeon population across North America. By the time people realized what had happened it was too late. There was just one living bird left in a zoo. No chance for captive breeding to save the species.
One of the reasons people did not act to save the passenger pigeon was they just could not believe a bird that had been so numerous could become extinct. When I read the stories of flocks that covered the entire sky horizon to horizon and blocked out the sun I marvel at the incredible amount of wildlife that once existed on this continent. No one alive today will ever see a flock of that magnitude. If we see a flock of geese of a few hundred we feel priveleged.
The economy is in a mess precisely because of the policies supported by Harper. Deregulation,"free trade," low taxes for corporations (in the 1960s half of the government of Canada's revenue came from business and half from citizens, today 90 per cent comes from citizens and less than 10 per cent comes from business). Globalization in the form it has taken has been an unmitigated disaster for the economy of North America, the workers who have seen high paying manufacturing jobs vanish thus necessitating the increasing debt to maintain the consumer lifestyle we have become accustomed to. It has also been a disaster for the environment where pollution regulations in other countries are much more lax.
Even though workers have employment in countries like Indonesia and China they are forbidden from organizing into unions to fight for better wages and working conditions. Thus the global corporation have created a work force that costs little to produce goods to sell to the West, but it has caught up to them for the consumers in the West have run out of money since the well paying jobs are gone. Heck even low paying jobs are hard to find in most of the United States today. There are tent cities of unemployed outside most cities and the mainstream news media gives this little attention as it would not fit the propaganda bill. How many people in the United States are homeless? There are some 11 to 17 million unemployed Americans. Their welfare system is limited and restricted. Food stamps pay a single unemployed mother of four just $16 a month for food.
Millions of homes lie empty as the banks foreclosed on the owners. One out of every 10 homes in the United States faces foreclosure.
Times are tough and getting tougher. If you have not read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath you should. It is the definitive work of fiction of the Great Depression. If you don't have the time you should see the excellent John Ford directed film of the same title. The answer lies in more government involvement in the economy not less. Socialism should be infused into the capitalist system to make it more fair and caring for the downtrodden. The rich should be taxed at levels they were in the 1960s to pay for proper government services to be provided for all.
The environmental issues must be faced and dealt with. Climate change is a juggernaut that moves slowly forward. Governments should be doing everything to understand it with more science, not less as Harper wants. I think the problem is like that of the passenger pigeon, people just cannot envision the consequences happening as they are so unbelievable. Vancouver under 75 feet of ocean water. PEI gone, submerged under the sea. It is just so unimaginable, maybe that is why we as a society have failed to act. I look up at the sky today and it is hard to believe one flock of birds could cover the entire sky and take up to three days to fly over.
All this action about the economy just made me more aware about all the inaction in regards to the environment.
Neil Sinclair
Rural Saskatoon
