An Interview with The Water Institute

Full text of an interview conducted by Allie Dusome of the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute and Larry Swatuk:

WI:       In your publication, “Seeing Invisible Water Challenges,” you talk about a ‘blue water bias’ that exists that makes a “majority of water professionals and policy makers blind to the significant amounts of green water available for human needs.” How can we better educate water professionals and policy makers on the concepts and applications of green water and virtual water?

LAS: There is a great deal of path dependence in science – and in life. We are all creatures of habit who grow comfortable trodding along the same path. Every once in a while there is a break from the routine, an idea or an insight emerges to shake us up. It is interesting to note that virtual water – a concept first articulated by Tony Allan for which he was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize some years back – has had greater purchase across the water world than has the idea of green water. Irrigation engineers, however, are well-versed in green water analysis, and rightly so, for most of the world’s food production depends on rainfall or, in Malin Falkenmark’s and Johan Rockstrom’s words: where the rain drop hits the soil.  But policy makers and the private sector remain enamored of blue water perhaps because there is more immediate political and economic pay-off to damming, diverting and draining available blue water. Perhaps also, the systems in place have been designed by powerful actors interested in capturing the available resource which, historically, was the water we could see. 

Beyond the well-watered parts of the world, ‘developing’ states aimed to mimic their ‘developed’ counterparts by capturing water. Water, in this context, is power: political, economic and social. In my view, powerful actors will continue to be blind to the benefits of green water, and to the potential hazards of living beyond their own water barriers because of current capabilities to import cheap food (i.e. virtual water). But their blindness need not lead us down the same dark path. There are true advantages to seeing virtual and green water, particularly in terms of understanding limits, thresholds and untapped possibilities. Seeing water more completely reveals to us many options we hitherto knew nothing about. It also reveals to us the fallacy of many claims pertaining to the state of the world’s water resources: that we are running out, that we are facing a water war, and so on.

The fact that we are talking about these new ways of seeing and understanding water suggests to me that it will not be long before they filter more meaningfully into policy discourses. This is happening in the more arid parts of the world such as North Africa and the Middle East. Indeed, green water is  being taken up in hydraulic modelling such as SWAT, and innovations in earth observation systems are facilitating the better integration of green and blue water into predictions of freshwater availability. Patience and persistence are needed in this regard.

However, an emerging puzzle is the fact that where savings can be realized through innovative ways of seeing and knowing water, this is not leading to a corresponding redeployment of water to more appropriate uses, such as a return to the ecosystem or to smallholder farmers downstream in a river basin. Rather, evidence shows that savings are often ‘lost’ to the extension of production by the current user. Put differently, since I have saved 25% of the water I used when the entire crop was under cotton by switching to wheat, I will extend my holdings of wheat since I have all this ‘extra’ water. How to ensure better outcomes from better knowledge? By facilitating a society-wide discussion about the most appropriate use of the resource. Such a conversation was begun during the recent extended drought in California, but since the rains have returned, most people have already returned to business as usual. All we can do is keep pushing for change through evidence based arguments framed appropriately, i.e. tailored to the audience. If the audience is politicians, then those interested in sustainable resource use must tie the argument to votes and dollars. If the audience is farmers, then the focus should be on short-term profits versus possible long-term collapse of their farms. The ready switch to wind production of some Kansas farmers who’ve run out of groundwater shows how difficult the argument regarding sustainability really is, given alternative options for profit making.

WI:      In your newest book, “Water in Southern Africa,” you do not shy away from the fact that the challenges for sustainable water management are immense. Drawing on the southern African experience, you argue that we must learn to “see water and the region differently if we are to meet present challenges and better prepare for an uncertain, climate-changing future.” Can you expand on this thought?

LAS: It is fitting that a pool of water acts as a mirror. For, in my view, the state of the world’s water resources reflects very accurately the state of our societies. How water is accessed, used and managed clearly shows us the problems and possibilities not only for resource sustainability, but for social inclusion, social justice, and sustainable development broadly defined. Too much water use research commences from an ahistorical, asocial largely technical and economic perspective. Put differently, whoever has the money and the power gets the water. So, ‘shortages’ are not biophysical, but socio-economic and socio-political. Let me give you an example from Southern Africa, though it is hardly unique in this regard: the region is often portrayed as a ‘success story’ of inter-state cooperation on transboundary waters. At the same time, all countries in the region ‘struggle’ to provide adequate water for the needs of all of their citizens. Are these two separate phenomena? No, they are not, though they are often presented as such. In the case of the former, there is said to be ‘progress’ deriving from human resource capability, adequate finance and so on. In the case of the latter, there is said to be ‘limited or uneven progress’ deriving from the absence of the same. But, in my view, if we see where the water flows, how, to whom and for what purpose, we can clearly see that these conditions are two sides of the same coin. As the saying goes, the first law of hydrology is that water flows toward money. Without doubt, many water challenges may be met with the application of good science supported by adequate finance and appropriate forms of governance and management. But, as a cursory view of the water world shows us, too few people are served by our current approaches and practices. The book puts forward several new ways of seeing water to help open up new avenues for discussion, debate and, one hopes, more fruitful action.

WI:       Your current research interests focus on the unintended negative consequences of climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions, a concept you label, ‘the boomerang effect.’ Can you provide a concrete example of the boomerang effect, and how do you think we can avoid such outcomes?

LAS: Most states have articulated their INDCs – intended nationally determined contributions – to greenhouse gas emissions reduction. 90 per cent of proposed actions are to be taken within a state’s sovereign borders; 10 per cent can derive from actions taken beyond national boundaries, that is, within another state. The clearest examples of a ‘boomerang effect’ occur along two separate pathways: one involving hydropower development, the other involving biofuels production. In terms of hydropower, states such as Brazil and Laos have undertaken massive infrastructure projects, marketing these in part as ‘clean energy’. However, they have resulted in or are leading to the displacement of local populations and  a boomerang effect of concerted social protest movements seeking to stop the projects. Such actions not only destabilize the state but also lead to unwanted negative press across the globe. In terms of biofuels, there is a well known ‘land grab’ underway across large swathes of the Global South: in Brazil, Indonesia, across much of sub-Saharan Africa. As national governments turn large amounts of land over to biofuels production, often run by para-statal or private companies from places such as Saudi Arabia, India, Korea and China, social protest is leading to difficult, even violent, state-civil society relations particularly at the point of intervention.

Our project, which is about to get underway with an initial focus on South Africa, and which involves researchers from India, Brazil, China, Germany, South Africa, Sweden and Canada, aims to devise a methodology to assist governments in decision-making regarding appropriate climate action. Through a combination of case studies, ecosystem valuation and earth observation methods, we will create an interactive web site where real-time data informs decisions through scenario development. Of course, at the end of the day it will be up to decision-makers to decide on what will be done. But it is our hope that if we can show the costs and benefits of different options for climate action, it will be less likely that the actions chosen will result in a boomerang effect.

WI:      You recognize that significant challenges of the world water crisis are the socio-political and socio-economic limitations to agriculture policy and practice, acknowledging that governance plays a key role in this. In your opinion, what are some steps that can be taken to alleviate these challenges?

LAS: You know, the vast majority of our freshwater goes to irrigated agriculture, mostly to grow crops not for immediate consumption but as an intermediate input into global ‘food’ production processes. I put quotation marks around ‘food’ to highlight the fact that much of the world’s irrigated corn crop ends up in processed foods as high fructose corn syrup, the consumption of which is suspect to say the least. And I’m not just picking on corn. We would be right to question the utility of many crops – from soy to alfalfa to cotton – in relation to their contribution to human health and well-being. Authors such as Michael Pollan have made the argument eloquently, so I need not go into it here. But what to do about it? Typically, there are three potential points of intervention and action: state, private sector and civil society. While nothing positive can come from an unregulated system, I am loathe to argue that the way forward is a heavy-handed state telling us what to eat and farmers – or, big agriculture, really – what to grow. It is better, in my view, to begin at the other end: at the level of civil society. As an educator, it is probably predictable that I would argue for better educating the public regarding the costs and consequences of the current global food system. (For a succinct overview of this, see Waterloo professor Jennifer Clapp’s book entitled Food.) You are what you eat, is a truism. But, as with water, so with agriculture: we are what we grow. How is it possible that malnutrition resides side by side around the world with ever greater crop production? In my book, I argue that we must not take conventional arguments for granted. We must shatter these food myths with empirical evidence founded on better ways of knowing and seeing where our resources are being deployed. Those of us interested in a better, fairer and more sustainable world must come down out of the ivory tower and be public intellectuals. We must challenge the forces of business as usual with sound arguments supported scientifically. I know there is an assault on science, on ‘the expert’, and in many cases rightly so. But no one said that moving away from practices that lead to social inequality, economic inefficiency and environmental unsustainability would be easy. In my classroom, I see a new generation who are already on board with such a perspective.

I have recently returned from an international conference on sustainable development that was held in Bogota, Colombia. This was a very interesting meeting that brought together science, society and policy in the form of the state, civil society and the private sector. What I found particularly interesting was the degree to which companies in the Global South are lessening their ecological footprints, innovating in terms of water management, and pursuing the so-called triple bottom line with great gusto. It seems to me that we are at a turning point, and a great many people have already decided that the status quo must be abandoned, and a new paradigm must emerge.

WI:     You have collaborated on research with a number of academics from different backgrounds. Why do you think interdisciplinary collaboration is important when it comes to water research and solving complex water challenges?

LAS: This is clearly a rhetorical question, for the answer is simple: what you see depends upon where you sit, and since no one sits in the same place, the view is always slightly different, depending on the vantage point. So, the value is clear: a complete answer depends upon a complete picture. The trick, of course, is how to do this, especially since a ‘complete picture’ of anything is something that can never be realized. It is something for which we can only strive. At the same time, it is not easy to bring social scientists together, let alone bring them together with their physical and biological and engineering sciences counterparts and ask them to understand each other. We speak different scientific languages, we focus on very specific things. The problems of the ‘inter-paradigm’ debate are well known. Nevertheless, what else have we to do? There really isn’t any option but to keep trying, is there? To this end, I find great utility in wishy-washy concepts – like IWRM and sustainable development. The true utility of these concepts is that they get disparate actors and interests together in the same room. In my view, that’s half the battle already won.

From California to Cape Town: Happy World Environment Day!

From California to Cape Town: Something to Think about on World Environment Day

What do the Western Cape in South Africa and the state of California in the United States have in common? One, they were both home to indigenous people who were marginalized by the forces of colonialism and imperialism. Two, these outsiders developed ‘neo-European’ settlements that followed the logics, interests and loves of Europeans. Three, when things proved to be ‘not quite right’ – i.e. that the soils were different or the rainfall patterns rain counter to European sensibilities – nature was ‘harnessed’ via a combination of capital and technology – to accommodate European ideas of what it meant to be civilized. Four, over time, these rich coastal settlements grew into massive conurbations whose hinterlands became thriving agicultural areas. The response to pressures for more resources – for more land for cities and crops; for more water for people and crops – was a dramatic altering of the natural landscape. Five, humans in both environments came to live apart from, rather than as part of their natural environment. Bimodal rainfall regimes, where there is one distinct wet and one distinct dry season, were compensated for through massive hydraulic works. Land unsuited for agriculture was now home to several crops per year due to the combination of artificial fertilizer and advances in groundwater pumping and systems of irrigation. And millions of people lived at rivers’ end, along the coast, dependent upon water pumped over hundreds of kilometres, up and down and sometimes through mountain ranges, right into their own homes.

California has done a better job of ensuring enough water for all, partly due to the success of the imperial/colonial enterprise. Unlike the American west, where native Americans died out in vast numbers often due to disease carried to them by white settlers, in South Africa, indigneous Africans suffered no such large-scale extermination. Rather, they were ‘corralled’ into homelands and townships, only later to break these shackles of oppression and return – in the millions – to cities such as Cape Town where settler infrastructure was ill-prepared for the needs of one and all. Nevertheless, while the scale is different, there are common racial and class specific effects of drought and flood in both the Western Cape and California. If you are African-American or Mexican-American you are just as likely to suffer the negative effects of extreme events as are poor indigenous Africans in the Western Cape while those richer and most often lighter in skin color suffer very little: so, this is the six common point of comparison.

Seven, in both of these regions, where drought and flood are ‘normal’ meteorological events, neither the Cape nor California is fully prepared to cope with their negative impacts. California has just come out of a multi-year drought. The Western Cape has suffered an extreme drought this year and is about to come out of it in a dramatic way, as a monster cold front makes its way toward the south-western tip of the African continent. What did California learn from its multi-year drought? What systems have been put in place to cope with the next ‘big one’? Sure, a few laws have been passed and people have learned about how water is used where and by whom for what end.  But I would venture to say, the disaster reduction response is not sufficient to prepare California for the next big drought. Worse is the Western Cape. In Cape Town, climate change policies and programs have focused heavily on carbon-neutral energy production and flood preparedness. What of drought? Another dam? Heightening the walls of existing dams? Where water management devices have been installed, they are where the need is greatest but access worst: in the townships, among the squatter settlements. Meanwhile, like California, the wealthy shower both themselves and their plants at will, while big agriculture continues apace, tapping groundwater where no surface water is available. This is not planning for the next big one. This is simply hoping to wait it out, all the while praying for rain. In my view, praying for rain is not an appropriate water management strategy. I have my own opinions as to why business as usual continues, but you the reader should wonder why, in places with money, technology and know how, the action plan is to get on your knees and pray. Happy world environment day!

Dear Mr. President-Elect Trump

Dear Mr. President-Elect Trump,

We would like to begin by congratulating you on your recent election as the 45^th President of the United States of America. You have promised to ‘make America great again’, referring perhaps to a time period after World War II and before the 1970s when the U.S. was an uncontested superpower, incomes were rising and the middle class was growing. To be sure, there were many problems during this time period including the struggle for civil rights domestically and the conduct of a highly questionable military action in Vietnam. Nevertheless, you have highlighted a number of approaches to recovering this perceived ‘greatness’, almost none of which is based in fact and if implemented would most certainly send not only the U.S. but possibly the world in the opposite direction. We wish to offer you some advice regarding several of your proposed policy positions.

Let us begin with your plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. We believe that this will not only be ineffective but send the wrong message regarding people of colour. In a survey regarding discrimination of Mexican immigrants, 40% said that they felt discrimination because of their heritage and 30% said that they were physically attacked because of it. A wall would support such actions and attitudes. We do not believe that your country will be made great ‘again’ through the perpetuation of hateful and racist behaviour. In general, immigrants accept jobs that citizens will not, with citizens perhaps fearing being trapped in a cycle of low-paid poverty. If you want Americans to take up these jobs, you might consider instituting a guaranteed income for all citizens. This would then encourage people unwilling to work for sub-subistence wages, to perhaps take on these jobs. 

Evidence from Finland suggests that this would be the case.

Second, let’s talk about your America-first approach to trade and production. You believe that globalization has hurt American industry, and taken jobs and money away from your people. Globalization is not going to disappear. Neither is the trend toward regional trading blocs, such as NAFTA and the proposed TPP, that have arisen in response to globalization. Mexico is your 3^rd largest trading partner. In 2015, U.S. imports from Mexico were $295 billion and exports were $236 billion. A lot of this trade is intra-company movement of goods and services, so really benefiting U.S. industry. U.S. foreign direct investment in Mexico amounted to $107.8 billion in 2014 alone, constituting a 5.3% increase over 2013. Canada is America’s 2^nd largest trading partner, with two-way trade totalling roughly $575 billion in 2015. These flows are a direct result of NAFTA. The off-loading of many low-skilled manufacturing jobs by U.S.-based multinationals to places like Mexico and China is not to be blamed on your trading partners. It is a function of companies responding to changes in the world economy. As these jobs have been lost, U.S. manufacturing value-added has actually increased quite dramatically over the last 30 years, from $700 billion in 1990 to $1,966 billion in 2012. This is due to a combination of mechanization and the recovery and retention of high-skilled manufacturing jobs across the country. A huge proportion of America’s wealth is dependent upon international trade and investment flows. Sure, the U.S. percentage of global trade has dropped over time, just as East Asia’s has risen. But the rise of Japan, China and so on is due in part to the behaviour of both U.S. corporations investing and producing in Asia (Mexico and elsewhere) and U.S. citizens consuming these products. At the same time, China has invested a great deal of its new wealth in the U.S., so helping America maintain its powerful economic position in the world. We are sorry to have to point out this obvious fact to you, Mr. President-Elect, but we are the world. The answer to perceived unfair practices due to regional and global agreements is to revisit and revise, not to scrap and try to go it alone. Remember how the world lurched into two World Wars? This was partly due to trade wars and hyper-nationalist policies. Do you really want to go in that direction?

Third, let us focus on your desire to get government off of the backs of the people. You have pledged to cut corporate taxes drastically and throw out two regulations for every one regulation that you introduce. Aside from being a rather odd thing to say, let us focus on what ‘deregulation’ entails in your view. You have suggested that you will scrap the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and privatize the health industry because you think more competition will reduce overall costs and prices. You think Obamacare unevenly helps poor citizens and increases the overall cost of health care. You want to replace it with ‘Trumpcare’, but this is estimated to cost $550 billion, while 20 million people would lose health-care coverage, including a large percentage of those who voted for you. How will you pay for this if you further shrink the tax base, particularly among that group of people most able to pay more tax in order to build a better society? An active state is essential for equitable development, and pulling out of essential services like health care will simply shift the burden onto those least able to help themselves and most in need. Is this the sort of America that you feel is ‘great’, Mr. Trump? You have also suggested deregulating the banking industry. Have you forgotten the housing crisis and the great financial crash of 2008? Canada, despite its proximity and reliance on the U.S., managed to keep its head above water because of tight regulations. We know that you have made much of your wealth by building casinos, Mr. Trump. But in our view, a primary problem with the world today is that current economic approaches toward the free flow of finance capital treat the world as a casino. We need to reign in the bankers, and to bring the financial world back into line with the world of actual economic production. There are tools out there, such as the long-proposed Tobin tax on capital flows. The answer to our current economic malaise, Mr. Trump, is not to turn your back on the world, but to embrace it with all its faults and to make it better through better laws, policies and practices. As you take up the position as ‘leader of the free world’, we hope that you will consider what we have said here and join us as part of the solution, not pull apart from us and become a large part of the problem. What we need is a thoughtful and considerate partner, not a new bully on the block.

Sincerely,

Larry Swatuk and the Class of INDEV 200

School of Environment, Enterprise and Development,

Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

All I Want for Thanksgiving

IF SANTA CAME AT THANKSGIVING

Dear Mr. Claus,

I have been a very good boy this year. I look forward to your imminent arrival. Please ensure that you stock the following for me, in reward for my stellar behaviour. In other words, all I want for Thanksgiving is:

1.       Government by ethical people who place the common good above their own interests and ideologies.

2.     Government by people who are principled but not dogmatic; who are able to listen and to consult and to keep all channels of communication open even when they are ‘getting an earful.’

3.       A coalition government that includes Justin Trudeau, Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May in senior cabinet positions. The Prime Minister is irrelevant to me; I will be happy with any of these three. I would also make room for a Tory or two in cabinet, but there is slim pickings there if quality is what we are looking for (refer to items 1 and 2 above). Perhaps Peter McKay’s wife might be encouraged to stand and run. She seems to be made of the right stuff for leadership. And while we are at it, 50% of parliament represented by women.

4.       A government committed to work with civil society and the private sector on building a diversified green economy.

5.       A government that puts peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding ahead of bomb dropping and fear-mongering.

6.       A government that governs as if the poor matter most.

7.       A government that builds water delivery systems, not prisons.

8.       A government that recognizes that ‘Canada’ is more than a geographic space occupied by self-centred consumers and profit-oriented free market capitalists; that being ‘open for business’ must be balanced by the complex business of building and supporting a strong Canadian identity. This means significant support for the arts, and for organizations such as the Canada Council and the CBC.

9.       A government that recognizes that education is the foundation of economic, social and ultimately ecological stability. Quality education should be affordable to all. The choices are there for spending Canadians’ tax money: spending on the software of teaching, training and research and on the hardware of buildings is money better spent than that which goes toward prisons and pensions for corrupt politicians.

10.   A government that is unafraid of the information its own scientists collect, and of the knowledge scientists everywhere generate. Knowledge is power, and therefore dangerous, but a government who follows 1-9 has nothing to fear or lose and everything to gain.

11.   A government committed to the Sustainable Development Goals, both in word and deed.

12.   A government that works with all parties in parliament, with the provincial Premiers, and with the Mayors of our major and secondary cities.

13.    A government free of bullies.

Kind regards. Enjoy the milk and cookies,

Larry

Boyden's THE ORENDA: A testosterone laden cycle of tit for tat

‘THOSE CRAZY INDIANS … or do I mean “humans”?’

Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda won the 2014 Canada Reads exercise hosted by CBC. This year’s theme and challenge was to identify one book that had the most potential to change Canada, which I interpret to mean to change the way Canadians think about and act in relation to some key issue. The Orenda was deemed to be that book. In my view, however, The Orenda fails miserably. Don’t get me wrong. The Orenda is a great read, chock full of interesting insights into 17^th Century life in and around the North American Great Lakes, including a sustained peek inside the heads of the men and women there, primarily a Jesuit priest named Christophe whom the natives call ‘crow’ or ‘charcoal’, and two others: a kidnapped Iroquois woman named Snow Falls who becomes the ‘daughter’ of a Huron leader named Bird, and that adoptive father. The book is also beautifully written, with many a cracking good sentence. The plot is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the discerning reader may pick up on the specifics of the effects of chicken pox and influenza, brought to the so-called ‘new world’ by Europeans. There’s interesting bits about engineering innovations. And plenty about diet and clothing and so on. But, the general narrative reads no differently than any ‘quest’ story, from The Hobbit to the Hunger Games. In other words, it is a timeless story where good and evil face off against each other, there is a clash of world views, some romance, a handsome protagonist, young love that starts off as anything but, and lots and lots and lots (did I say lots?) of violence.

It is the last bit where, in my view, The Orenda fails mightily as a ‘book that can change Canada’. What it does, unfortunately, is reinforce stereotypes that ‘the average Canadian’ holds about native people: i.e. they are beautiful, at one with the earth, backward in their thinking, and blood thirsty savages, or  sauvages as Boyden terms them en Français throughout the book. There is a video clip on cbc.ca of the book’s promoter, Wab Kinew, debating Stephen Lewis on the merits of what Lewis calls ‘torture pornography’. In Lewis’s view, the violence only plays into the dominant narrative regarding natives, so setting back the need to build consensus around issues such as native land claims. Mr. Kinew counters with claims of his own that the torture is a sort of ritualized respect – termed, in some instances, ‘caressing’ – for one’s captives. In his view, and in Boyden’s narrative, torture is a means of showing your antagonist respect. What a load of rubbish. Torture as respect? Let’s get this straight: torture is never ever ever justified ever. EVER. In some ways this book reads like a warped male fantasy nurtured by ultra-violent millenarian video games. And whether or not it is true to life, all that violence really put me off. At one level, the entire book reads as a testosterone laden cycle of tit for tat.

Did The Orenda, then, change me, as a Canadian, in any fundamental way? No. But it did reinforce something I’ve always said: people are people. Want evidence? Well, let’s just say Abu Ghraib. 400 years later and we are still engaged in the same stupid human tricks. What an underachieving species humans are, if there ever was one. The fact of Abu Ghraib should give pause, then, to the average Canadian’s perspective on native peoples. It should be replaced with, ‘Well, hey, look at that … we are all just the same!’ Goodbye misguided notion of the ‘noble savage’, hello joe you’re just an average schmo suffering the 7 deadly sins like me!

Along that line, there is the lovely tension between wanting to maintain one’s way of life versus all the bling that the old world brings. While knowing that this will alter their ways of life forever, the Huron welcome the charcoal into their villages hoping that it will help cement trade relations with the ‘iron people’. But as Boyden shows quite nicely, along with guns and pots comes smallpox, influenza and other infectious disease (not to mention Christianity! But I’m getting to that). Remind you of anything? I’ll give you a clue: can you say ‘Climate Change’?

The Orenda makes an interesting point at the very end: be careful what you think is dead and buried, for it may come to live again. Idle No More, indeed! An odd point to make, however, it seems to me, in a book where the intentions of French missionaries, through Christophe’s ruminations, are cast in quite a sympathetic light. What is missing? In my view what is buried beneath the avalanche of page after page after page of inter-tribal violence is the truly horrific but subtle and ultimately structural violence that is the coming of Christianity through the ‘good intentions’ of Pere Christophe Crow. But what is the crow really asking of the natives? He is asking them to admit that the way they live is wrong and must be abandoned or they will burn in hell forever. Today we call this ‘development’. While the reader is flinching at yet another passage of torture pornography, s/he is subtly buying into Christophe’s view that erasing native culture really is the right thing to do; after all, what’s to be lost besides their savage ways? Christophe Crow condemns bad behavior all around – drinking, whoring, rape, torture – but he never questions his own creation story. And while it is amusing to see each group through the naïve eyes of ‘the other’, there is never a moment presented where the non-native reader is asked to challenge his or her own belief system. How ultimately disappointing. 

Mandela is dead but the struggle (for the spotlight) continues

Am I the only one who feels a little bit put out by the plane-load of Canadian 'leaders' flying down to Johannesburg to attend the wake for Nelson Mandela? Brian Mulroney... OK. Allison Redford... really? I mean there are many many many others who helped in an equal or more central way that you, Madame Premier. And the rest? What did Stephen Harper do to help end apartheid? Kim Campbell? This all looks like a sad photo-op to me. I can think of a much more creative and relevant list of people to be on that plane and it would include, along with Mr Mulroney, representatives from the following groups: (i) civil society organizations such as the Churches, university clubs, labour unions, and NGOs who fought so hard to change government policy, approaches and tactics regarding white minority rule in South Africa; (ii) the countless members of the Canadian civil service who quietly pressed for change irrespective of the official policy of the government of the day (hey! even some good friends from CIDA should be there); (iii) an incredibly vocal Canadian media who kept us all informed about the progress and setbacks along the road to liberation, not just in South Africa, but across the African continent; (iv) individual Canadian citizens who donated money, raised funds, wrote position papers and op-eds, hosted students and refugees from across the region and South Africa itself; (v) the African (not just South African) diaspora in Canada, including its Caribbean, Central and Latin American offshoots, who made sure the fires of liberation never went out; (vi) members of the Canadian political opposition who held the ruling party's feet to the fire at key moments when all looked to be lost; and (vii) representatives of municipal governments who were often first to take the lead in boycotts of South African goods long before central government got on board. I am sure there are a few other groups that I should be mentioning, but lest we forget, the struggle to end apartheid had no politicians in the frontline. It was fought first and foremost within South Africa by South Africans themselves; second, across Africa by South African exiles and their comrades in neighboring states, many of whom paid a very heavy toll; and third, by civil society groups, social movements and key government allies in the rest of the world. As with the climate change issue, heads of state and government save for a progressive few were late to the party, some arriving just in time to claim credit where little of it was in fact due. And let's not talk about the private sector's role here shall we.

One of the greatest things about Nelson Mandela is that he never put himself ahead of the movement. He was always at pains to speak of 'we' not 'me'. How unusual in the contemporary global context of 'I, me, mine'. I do not mean to discount any of those characteristics for which he is most revered. We are right to celebrate his life, his achievements, his character and legacy. But it is a bit embarrassing, and not a little ironic, to see all this jockeying for an invitation by a political class, the combined integrity of which, if it were sand, would not fill Mandela's left shoe.

Reasons for Optimism on Climate Action

The COP 18 Doha climate talks are over. Like COP 17 at Durban, very little was achieved. There is an agreement to discuss a way to possibly finance ‘loss and damage’ induced by climate change in the poorest parts of the world. The Kyoto Protocol, due to expire this year, has been extended to 2020, with agreement to have a post-Kyoto ‘road map’ ready by 2015. However, since Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the US have opted out of Kyoto, and since parties to the Kyoto Protocol constitute only 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is difficult to feel optimistic about these agreements.  On the other hand, the many so-called ‘side events’ revealed a wealth of people from civil society, the private sector, and some governments committed to pushing for meaningful action on climate change despite the unwillingness of the world’s most powerful actors to do the same.

These actions at Doha reveal some hard truths about ourselves – both positive and negative – in relation to climate change. While the forces in support of the status quo often appear immutable, I argue here that, on balance, there are more reasons for hope than we often realize.

First, let’s look at ten reasons for indifference. Standing at the heart of inaction on climate change is apathy. We are a lazy lot: give us our essentials – sugar, salt and fat – in quantities enough to stupefy and we are lazier still. Second, whether we are sitting stupefied on the couch, or struggling for survival as one of the bottom billion, we are too preoccupied with our own individual lives to think collectively. Third, we all suffer from attention deficit disorder, and as a result are easily distracted by the next ‘shiny thing’. Fourth, as Marie Antoinette knew only too well, we are drawn to ‘shiny things’ that appeal to our baser instincts. Give us ‘bread and circuses’, increasingly of our own choosing via personal devices such as smartphones, and we can easily ignore those things that are much more difficult and painful to think about. Fifth, given that Western consumerist lifestyles are at the heart of the problem, being told that ‘we must change’ is primarily met with a ‘say what?’ amid the din of buy, buy, buy. Sixth, rather than change we hope to invent our way out of ‘the problem’. Plus, geo-engineering is so cool!

Seventh, climate change does not affect us all in the same way. The poor will be most seriously affected, but, hey, out of sight, out of mind, right? Others will benefit economically: longer growing seasons, more arable land, access to natural resources such as oil and gas. If I had a penny for every time a Canadian said to me, ‘Global warming? Bring it on!’, well, the penny would still be relevant. Eighth, state and corporate power derives from a carbon-based economy, so global leaders must control the language around climate change: we can adapt; it’s a result of sunspot activity; it’s part of a natural cycle. This, by the way, is a message that we all like to hear. Ninth, the most powerful people in the most vulnerable places – the one-percent amid the bottom billion – have options not available to others resident in their part of the world. At worst, when the heat hits the fan, they can move to another country. Tenth, as the Canada-China oil sands deal shows us, in the face of global financial crisis we are only too willing to sacrifice the planet for promises of ‘net benefits to Canada’: short term gain for long term pain.

As the climate science shows, change is upon us. We are heading for a world that will be 2 degrees warmer by 2050; 4 degrees warmer by the end of this century. A recent World Bank study has outlined the havoc such temperature change will wreak. Do we have a critical mass of committed individuals out there ready to act? To want less? To put down their shiny things, and carefully consider the hard questions? Clearly, not yet. But here are a few reasons why we shouldn’t give in to the forces of apathy, complacence and narrow self-interest.

First, humans show time and again the will and capacity to rally around discreet events: earthquake in Haiti; floods in Pakistan; drought in the Horn of Africa. Second, our apathy is balanced with an equal measure of empathy: as we are increasingly connected through social media, and as our families are flung far and wide around the world, the discreet and remote is suddenly commonly felt and local. Third, a global cohort of young people care about their common future. They have no time for the cynicism of their elders. The average age of Canadian Cabinet Ministers is 54. If all 38 of them live to be 80 years old, only six will be around in 2050. In contrast, most of our university and college students will survive to 2075. Pushing for positive change must focus on our youth. Fourth, humans can take instruction and follow direction: once a specific action is identified people respond well (e.g. cease the use of aerosols because ozone depletion is caused by chlorofluorocarbons). Fifth, we also show a willingness to change if there is proof that our actions have positive effect. Recycling programs are now accepted as obviously beneficial around the world.

Sixth, because climate change affects us all in a wide-variety of ways, we need not wait for ‘The Big Event’.  We can act incrementally. Seventh, the climate action coalition is multi-generational, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic. There is no way to cast it as a ‘special interest group’. Lastly, in the absence of an overarching unifying event, the differential impacts of climate change means we can be motivated for highly individual reasons (even if just to appease our own worried children), while we take personal and/or collective action at whatever level of society we wish. Are you listening, Minister Kent? Your grandchildren are counting on you. Do the positives outweight the negatives? Despite the disappointments at Doha, I believe that they do.