Editor:
A democratic era. Royalist/imperialist/colonialist/fascist/nouveau-riche/aspiring-inglorious-dictator’s past. Force can/will no longer resolve conflict/controversy … global/local/aboriginal/dominance/submission being belonging to an autocratic past. All humanity/human beings respected/loved/belonging/cosmically/universally to one global democratic/family/community. Each having a safe place as equal to all others. An age of democracy.
Our global issue … neo-conservative/uneconomical/corporate plundering of this planet. Earth’s limited resources cannot sustain exponential/exploitative inhuman/corporate/untenable-social-injustices. Human history/future faces/share an unjust-sixth-extinction.
Growing/superior/dominant global wealth, 300 people now “own” the poorest three billion. Half our human population “own” just one per cent of global wealth. By 2050, with 9.3 billion people, decent/democratic/equal/civilized existence isn’t possible. Dominant/anti-democratic wealth retain/”owning” legislators/rigged-regulations/enforcers rule-dictate outside main-stream-rivers of life. Fossil-fuel economics/cronies/interests aren’t about transitioning ASAP to a post-carbon economy/world. Eight of 11 world’s richest corporations are fossil-fuel corporations.
Warming/rising ocean levels, CO2-acidification, melting glaciers/ice-sheets, extreme-weather, droughts, fires, floods, water-scarcity, shortages of arable land/food, mass-species-extinctions, climate-migrations/refugees, violence/wars denied/ignored, worsens. Maximized Canadian/global fossil-fuel consumption makes global-warming/climate-change even more destructive.
Dr. James Hansen (retired director, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences, adjunct professor, Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University Earth Institute … National Academy of Sciences 1979 scientific research paper) warned U.S. congress (1988 Wirth hearings, 1989 Gore hearings). Globally, nations responded with Kyoto Protocols (12/11/1997). Not U.S. and Australia. U. S. congress wouldn’t ratify mitigating fossil-fuel Kyoto-Protocols. Chretien was right agreeing/promoting/signing/ratifying Kyoto-Protocols (12/11/1997). Chretien didn’t/couldn’t muster “democratic” Canadian/Alberta support to keep Canada’s Kyoto-Protocol/agreements/commitments.
Al Gore’s 2000 presidential election was unconscionably/anti-democratically “stolen” (for pro-fossil-fueler Texan George Bush. Dr. James Hansen testified/warned (2001) vice-president’s, ex-Haliburton Dick Cheney’s “Climate Task Force” included National Security Advisor Condoleeze Rice, six cabinet members including Secretary of State Colin Powell. Cheney/Bush followed/launched/knowingly (3/20/2003) a three-thousand billion dollar “Shock and Awe” war in Iraq (still counting using/wasting/destroying dear public/valued assets for private-gain) to “secure” Middle-East oil for neo-conned global/hegemony’s “The New American Century.” Destructive/military/war is the world’s worse/destroying/wasting polluter). Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth (2006)” summed up our human/tenuous/condition (Nobel Prize awarded to Gore and the IPCC in 2007.)
Prof. Lord Stern’s commission/report (2006 UK), “economics of climate-change,” saying/concluding the longer we delay, the higher the cost is right (Stern update 1/26/2013, “It’s Far Far Worse”). Harper withdrawing Canada from Kyoto-Protocol’s (12/11/2011), promoting secure/mass global consumption of “safe” Canadian fossil-fuels was/is wrong/immoral (post/U.S./Iraq War/mission unaccomplished/anti-global-safety/sustainability neo-conned/denials/defiances. World Bank’s “Why Passing 4C Must Be Avoided” is right (June, 2013).
Needed (2014/15), think/ask/seek available scientific facts — why passing 1C, 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C, 3C, 4C, 5C, 6C this century must be avoided — not lefty greens versus ultra-right neo-conned economy — but staying embedded/immersed in the stream of future-human-life. Wanted/quickly … a globally sustainable human future, universal/global human-eco-justice for all. Situational demands (2014 to Paris 2015) are “simple.” Democratically, Canadian’s (especially youth) must plan “uncompromised-transition” to renewable/sustainable post-carbon/energized economies ASAP … dauntlessly/bearing/facing fierce/wealthy/plutocratic-powered opposition, troubling/costly changes … or face footnote/human-life-extinction … posthaste/too soon. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Essential Freedoms” Jan. 5, 1941, a post Second World War world based on: 1. Freedom of speech and expression. 2. Freedom of religion, of every person worshipping God in his/her own way. 3. Freedom from want. 4. Freedom from fear. All attainable in our own time and generation.
Herb Nakada
Williams Lake
