Last fall 15,000 scientists issued a second dire notice to humanity that we are on a collision course with the limits of our planet. They concluded, “To prevent widespread misery, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual,” including “reassess[ing]… the role of an economy rooted in growth.” That means that we have to challenge capitalism; there is no capitalism without growth.
Describing something as being in “the national interest” gives it a sense of gravitas, of over-arching public purpose.
So it always struck me as odd to hear Justin Trudeau say that the building the Kinder Morgan pipeline was “in the national interest.”
How can something be in the national interest when it would significantly contribute to the destruction of the very planet that sustains us? Can something really serve our interest as a nation when it undermines our more basic interest as humans?
Thomas Homer-Dixon is a CIGI chair at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and professor in the faculty of environment at the University of Waterloo.
Yonatan Strauch is a doctoral candidate in the school of environment, resources and sustainability at the University of Waterloo.
Unprecedented Crime By Peter D. Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth. Clarity Press, Inc., 269 pp, softcover
Nobody in the mainstream media ever asks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Finance Minister Bill Morneau if they're perpetrating an unprecedented crime on future generations.
Even after the Liberal government announced its intention to pay a Texas oil company $4.5 billion for its Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project, coverage focused on the financial aspects of the deal, not its moral component.
Students and alumni at Tufts University protest near the Tufts University presidents office in Medford, Mass. on April 22, 2015, and began a sit-in that they said would continue until the administration commits to fossil fuel divestment. (Photo: David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Three prominent Quebec-area Indigenous chiefs were among the hundreds of people who gathered in Montreal on Sunday to protest the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.
Assembly of First Nations regional Chief Ghislain Picard, Mohawk Chief Serge Simon and Innu Chief Jean-Charles Pietacho spoke out against the project, citing the need to show solidarity with First Nations and other groups in British Columbia who are fighting against it.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling on the government to take the money it was planning to use to compensate Kinder Morgan investors in the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and instead invest in clean energy jobs.
Last week Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government is willing to “provide indemnity” to any investors if “unnecessary delays” cause costs to rise.
“What we should be doing instead is using that fossil fuel subsidy, using the proposed money … to invest in clean energy jobs for today and the future,” said Singh Tuesday.
