In a heavy hitting article in The Globe and Mail, akin to a slap-in-the-face, ice-water-in-your-pants, wake-up shake, NASA scientist James Hansen pins the last three years' freak weather pattern on climate change. He hasn't even mentioned the two massive power blackouts in India, and from my personal experience, the rising temperatures in the Philippines that even the locals are complaining about, as well as the massive rains in the Philippines in the last few days.)
And yet, locally, here in Guelph, and repeated thousands of times across Canada, in the mornings, we line up our cars at the Tim's drive-through (also at McDonald's... surely deserves positive mention at the next shareholders' meeting), 10-plus cars in a row at a time.
I have watched (while waiting for my bus on Gordon and Kortright) an empty store inside with a car lineup outside. One could park their car, go inside to grab something, and go back to the car in less time than it takes to go through the drive through. And this happens in, arguably, one of the most environmentally-conscious cities in Canada.
Why do we keep on shitting in our own backyard. There is no Plan B for Planet Earth.
Last night, while lining up for entry into the theatre, I overheard one woman, recently retired and keeping active, talk about the university courses she is taking in Santa Monica, Californa. She has taken 20 sessions so far, and she flies in from Guelph, Canada for every one of those sessions, obviously spaced months apart. What's the carbon footprint on this course?
We don't have to stop participating and indulging in our preferred activities. But surely, we should be using our supposedly highly-evolved brains to find alternative ways of going about our business.
Please read my book review on "You are Here".
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