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