As we get closer to the anniversary of the death of Robin Williams, recent events have strongly reminded me of one of his most influential films on my life and worldview SA国际影视传媒� FernGully, the Last Rainforest.
For those who haven't seen it, the premise is a jungle paradise is under threat by a logging industry that is unknowingly serving the interests of the evil god of destruction, Hexxus, who takes the form of a smug-looking monster composed of smoke and oil.
It was a potent message for us kids back in the 1990s, when adults were largely ignoring David Suzuki's warnings climate change was going to be really bad.
In the three decades that followed, our efforts to mitigate climate change here in North America have fluctuated between minimal to non-existent. Canada and the United States first helped negotiate the Kyoto Accord, then abandoned the accord and allowed it to collapse when the ruling parties changed sides.
Following the collapse of Kyoto, very little was done in North America to mitigate climate change. Instead, we started fracking SA国际影视传媒� in spite of growing volumes of scientific literature showing that by doing so we're condemning future generations to earthquakes in fracked areas. This also derailed active development of the Beaufort Delta's oil and gas reserves, as fracking was exponentially cheaper.
It was only after another electoral shift across the continent when we got the Paris Accord, which is by no means perfect and is easily 30 years too late to help our generation, but at least it's a clear goal the world can agree on and it's managed to withstand a four-year period of "drill, baby, drill" under the previous U.S. president, who is currently trying to reclaim power.
So when news broke that the town of Jasper was ablaze, my reaction was not shock, or surprise or even sorrow. Just anger.
Last year, a once-a-millenium rainstorm flooded Nova Scotia and four people were left dead. This year, another once-a-millenium rainstorm washed another youth away to his death. None of the youth involved in those tragedies have had the opportunity to vote their opinion on whether we should be mitigating climate change or protecting our established industries, but they were forced to pay the ultimate consequence of our collective decision-making over the past half-century.
Here in the NWT, most of the southern territory is under a combination of heat and smoke warnings. Nahanni Butte has had two extreme rainfall scares. Considering the NWT's wildfire season didn't get really bad until August last year, it would be pragmatic to assume the worst is yet to come.
How much longer are we prepared to watch one another's communities get destroyed? Are we going to have to evacuate Toronto before a majority of Canadians take climate change seriously?
So far, the argument presented against aggressively working to decarbonize the economy and mitigate the causes of climate change are that the costs of doing so are prohibitive and low-carbon technology would displace our established industries, creating economic hardship for the lower and middle classes.
That argument is bunk. For starters, since the turn of the century, many European countries have dramatically reduced their greenhouse gas emissions without any economic downturn. In fact, evidence indicates fighting decarbonization is costing Canadians a lot more money and jobs than it's saving.
In the example of Jasper, not only are 10,000 people now potentially without a home, but hundreds, if not thousands of small businesses, are effectively bankrupt. Jasper is a multi-million dollar operation SA国际影视传媒� in the gift shops alone there is probably millions of dollars of stock that will have to be written off from smoke damage. Then there's all the resorts, wedding planners, campgrounds, tour guides and other industries that are effectively closed for at least a year or more.
It's probably safe to say climate change just cost the Canadian economy tens of millions of dollars overnight.
So far, the communities which have faced Mother Nature's fury have been fortunate enough to have had either an escape corridor or the Canadian Armed Forces were able to land aircraft and get people out in time. We can't assume that's always going to be the case SA国际影视传媒� it is entirely possible a community could be told to evacuate due to a wildfire only to find themselves trapped because flooding or rainfall knocked out the only road in an area where you simply cannot land large aircraft. Potentially, a disaster could become a tragedy.
My generation and those who preceded it need to accept we screwed up big time and only we can fix this. If we continue to sacrifice the future of Canada to save money, we're going to end up with neither.
