Happy New Year and all that, and more….
We’ll begin by wishing all correspondents and friends who sent Hanukkah and Christmas wishes, and other niceties, the best of everything for 2007. This corner thrives, no survives on whatever support it can garner. Given that last year marked my retirement from Queen’s, I’ve had the chance to ponder the cosmos a bit more and to seek the big meaning of things. In politics, economics, and culture, “globalization” proceeded apace, and we’ve all now had the chance to see the positive and negative aspects of this process that has been continuing for a long, long time. Globalization is nothing new, of course; it would have been an apt term during the late fifteenth century, about the time that Spain and Portugal were aiming to find THE passage that would make them rich beyond compare.
One suspects that the major theme in global development since then has been the way we humans, everywhere, have used up the earth–that is, its resources, its flora and fauna, and the atmosphere that surrounds it. In recent years, highlighted (perhaps) by Al Gore’s recent film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” (”Filled with Gore!” one critic opined), we realize that, as a wise speech professor at Berkeley once told us, we now stand, nervously loquacious on the edge of an abyss. There are thousands of pieces of evidence out there now, ranging from the disappearance of river dolpins on the Yangtze, the recent designation of polar bears as an endangered species, and, on a more mundane level, Kingston’s Springer Market Square, allegedly a skating rink at this time of year, but now, in fact, a fish pond.
Some good news coming from all this? We’re not paying spiking prices for home heating oil and natural gas. Barrel prices on the OPEC market have dropped considerably, even though pump prices remain high. Oil companies should think about using this lull in the action to work to create more environmentally friendly technologies. But I am not holding my breath.
Perhaps some better news would be the ability of all of us to cut our uses of energy, particularly automobiles, electric clothes driers, and the new giant plasma TV sets (so I am told). The oil companies still reign, albeit Alberta is itself a bit nervous over its standing in the country–soooo many references to Ontarians as “bastards who should freeze in the cold” over the past decades, now replaced by an Ontarian suggestion that Albertans are “bastards who should fry in the heat.” Topsy-turvy it is, ski people, winter clothing people, snow removal people, and many others who deign themselves winter people wonder where it will stop. The temp in NYCity today is to hit 70F. Are we on the verge of the kind of thing predicted in that lurid film depticting global destruction. “The Day After Tomorrow” portrayed an earth that overnigth changed cataclysmically. Iced over East Coast of the US. Tornadoes in Hollywood. Southern Californians fleeing to Mexico (ha! nice twist!) And the like.
Perhaps it’s just a particularly strong el nino out in the Pacific off the coast of CA and northern Mexico that has turned Kingston and eastern Ontario into a version of Vancouver, a place where people really don’t have a winter or a spring. And what of the perennials? Will they bloom too soon and then get hit, fatally, by a freeze? Interesting times, these, perhaps bringing a new consciousness to the way we live, drive, eat, commute, travel, etc.
Fossil fuels have heated the earth considerably over the past half century, and the implications are huge: melted polar ice caps, rising sea levels, huge shifts in weather patterns are some of the Gore-text warnings that seem all-too-prescient.
Several years ago, at a colleague’s home for dinner, the host’s son, who happened to be a student of mine, announced in front of a distinguished coterie of dinner guests, “You really don’t have to worry about what you do or don’t do. Nostradamus wrote that we’ll all be underwater by 2200 anyway.” “Shut up with that nonsense!!” His mother (a respected scholar) responded, her mouth a grimace.
Nostradamus may have been right, and the under-water scenario which seemed so far-fetched even a decade ago, now seems even to have convinced Georgie Bush and Stevie Harper that something must be done. Given the track record of both men on other important questions and items, however, it is dubious whether either man possesses the intelligence and gumption to confront the set of questions that now appear inevitable. Environmental questions will affect the well-being and security of all of us — and perhaps it is with all of us –and not the elected leaders who allegedly lead us — with which answers lie.
Oh Yes, Happy New Year, Belatedly. And rather than giving up chocolate or booze for Lent, why not give up driving?