Fish Lip Service

Imagine that your government would only protect you if you were proven to be valuable to the economy.  Imagine that even if you were valuable to your economy, and therefore legally had the protection of the government, they are careful to point out that they will only protect you, not your home.  Would you feel protected?

This is what has happened to the fisheries act under Bill C-38: the government has been careful to clarify which fish they will protect (only those with commercial value), and they've removed protection for the habitat of fish.  This has all been done for the sake of cutting red tape for development projects, and the government insists that it has not reduced actual protection, just bureaucracy.  But how can they single out a few types of fish to protect in the midst of an ecosystem?  And how can they expect to protect those fish without protecting the places where those fish live, breathe, eat, and spawn?  In this regard, what is true of a fish is also true of you and me: how can we be healthy and safe if our environment, which provides the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, and the materials for our shelter, clothing, and other consumer goods, is not itself healthy and safe?

Of course, just because the government no longer protects the habitat of fish doesn't necessarily mean that they are at risk.  Development projects still must undergo environmental reviews, even though those have been streamlined significantly (read: sped up).  But new legislation actually gives a minister the ability to circumvent the assessment process, if the project is significant enough.  

So we have protection of fish, but without protection of streams; and we have (fast) environmental assessments, unless it's a really big project, in which case it can be skipped.  This speaks volumes about the Harper government's commitment to a growing economy at all costs, as well as its belief that economy and environment are opposed to one another and economy must triumph over environment.  These assumptions are simply untrue.

There is a belief, common in our government, that environmentalists are against the economy.  What an absurd claim!  We have jobs, pay taxes, buy the products we need (and want), give to charity, and volunteer in our communities, just like everyone else.  While we may debate over whether continual growth is positive (or even possible), we know we need an economy to survive as a community, as a nation.  What environmentalists don't believe in is a growing economy at all costs.   

Protection of the environment is not about being a bleeding-heart animal lover, or coveting our favourite canoeing spots.  Economy cannot exist without environment, which is the source of all of our goods and resources.  To pay lip service to protection of the environment while allowing major industrial projects to skip even an assessment is disingenuous, and will ultimately cut the legs of our economy (that is, our environment) out from under us.

Jeff Wheeldon

Beyond Capitalism

We had a booth at Summer in the City. Our theme was Envisioning a Solar Future. We drew attention to the many opportunities we have to harness solar power: solar for electricity – to light our houses and to pump water in off-grid situations; solar to heat water – for domestic use and to heat our homes; solar to bake our food and solar to dry and preserve our food. We had some excellent conversations.

Many people wondered what price they would pay for the various solar systems. We did have the answer that question and advised them to check with suppliers.

However there is another answer to the question of cost, that suppliers can’t answer. I recently spoke with a friend who has covered most of his south facing roof with solar electric panels. On a sunny day he generates more electricity than he can use, and sells the surplus to Manitoba Hydro. When the sun goes down, he purchases electricity from Manitoba Hydro. It all looks impressive.

I challenged my friend and suggested it would take him twenty years to recover his investment. He told me that, by his calculations, cost recovery will take seventeen years without considering interest; perhaps thirty years considering interest. But, he challenged me, why should the rate of return on an investment be considered the most important criteria when making an investment.

“Were I seeking the highest financial return on an investment I am making,” he continued, “I should invest in the Alberta tar sands. Were I to do that, I believe my investment would be bad for my children on the long run. With these solar panels, I am investing in something I believe will be good for them.”

As I have reflected on what he said, I come to realize there is something very profound in that way of thinking.

Capitalist thinking has had a profound effect on all of us. It has taught us that the most important, perhaps only, consideration when making an investment is the financial return on that investment. I dare say those of us who have our savings in the Credit Union, have them there primarily because the return there is higher than at the bank. The fact that the Credit Union is built on not-for-profit principles is incidental to our investment choice. This is capitalism at its best, but not humanity at its best.

Capitalism does not ask whether an investment contributes to the creation of beauty or the destruction of beauty. It does not ask whether an investment contributes to the taking of life or the giving of life. It is concerned only with the financial return.

This does not mean capitalism is bad. It becomes bad, however, when the investor is not conscious of capitalism’s limitations. Unfortunately, all too often we are so enamored with the allure of capitalism that we forget this limitation. If more of us would apply ethical criteria to our investments, there is little doubt that the world would be a better place.

By Eric Rempel

Measuring Wellbeing

Last week I lamented the continuing emphasis on GNP and growth, not only by our governments at all levels, but also within our news media. The media is educating us in the inadequacy of GNP as a measure of our wellbeing, and then that same media floods us with information about GNP as if that is the only measurable indicator of wellbeing.

As long as we focus on GNP, our concern will be the amount of money changing hands each quarter, not the actual well-being delivered by the economy. Taking seriously a different way of measuring wellbeing is crucial to establishing a sane, sustainable, steady state economy.

The unlikely country of Bhutan, a kingdom in the Himalayas with a population about that of Winnipeg, is giving world leadership in the development of a “Gross National Happiness” indicator. By the standard measurements of wealth, Bhutan is not a rich country. In terms of GNP per capita, Bhutan is ranked 130 in the world. But they have established as a national goal, to become happy, rather than to become rich. As early as 2007, Business Week ranked Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia, and the eighth happiest in the world.

At a recent UN conference, the Prime Minister of Bhutan observed that GDP growth is killing the planet, destroying our future, and making humanity less equitable and, on the whole, more miserable. I think he’s right.

Any attempt to measure happiness will, without a doubt, draw the skeptical response that any such measure must, by its nature, be subjective. While this is true, the implied inference that such a measurement is then unreliable and of little value needs to be challenged. If we limit our pursuits to the attainment of indicators that are easily measured (economic growth), we are doomed to pursue that which is unattainable: perpetual growth.

Remember, if you hang your laundry out to dry, letting the sun and wind do the drying, you do not contribute to GNP. But if you throw it in the dryer and use electricity, you give the GNP a nudge upward. If one parent stays home to care for children, the GNP index is not happy. If both parents take a job and place their children in daycare, the GNP smiles.

It is interesting to note that following Bhutan’s lead, Britain's David Cameron, and France's Nicolas Sarkozy have become supporters of adding well-being to raw economic indicators. Australia, New Zealand, China, Italy, Japan and South Africa are some other countries that are considering measuring wellbeing as a way of informing policy.

Here we have the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. Data for this is being collected by a non-government group, which may be a good thing in that it makes it independent of political bias.

Unfortunately however, any reading of the federal omnibus budget bill now before the house must conclude that the only interest this federal government has, is in economic growth. This bias could be offset by greater enlightenment at the provincial or municipal level. But it is lacking there too.

Eric Rempel

Why the Continuing Emphasis on GNP?

It happened again last night. The national news reported “Canada's gross national product [GNP] grew at a 1.9 per cent annual pace in the first three months of the year, the same pace seen at the end of 2011.” So what does this tell us? Well it tells us that the total value of everything produced by enterprises in Canada grew by 1.9% annually. What it does not tell us is whether this growth was good or bad.

I find this discouraging! Discouraging because 30 years ago, in 1992, the same broadcaster, the CBC, first showed me how inadequate and potentially misleading reporting GNP is. 1992 was the year of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. If you don’t remember it, google for it. This was the first UN conference on the Environment and Development. The CBC, and other media covered it extensively. It was because of that conference and that reporting that conference, that many of us first realized the fragility of the environment we depend on, and the negative impact human activity is having on the very resources we depend on for life.

Specifically on the GNP, I came to realize that an oil spill off the coast of British Columbia does more to raise the GNP than the discovery of a new cure for cancer. We were told then, of the need for more meaningful indicators of well-being than GNP.

And much as been done to develop a new index. Best known is the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). But it is hardly well known. It is ironical that the same media that covers and applauds the existence of this index, does not use it.

I find it discouraging that the media, in spite of giving us these stories about the need and development of better indicators of national well-being, continue to use GNP in their reporting as if it is the only indicator of our nation’s economic health with any value.

No doubt the GNP is easier to measure than the CIW. I suspect it is realistic to expect a report on GNP every quarter, whereas a quarterly report on CIW is probably not possible. Nevertheless, I think it is reasonable to expect a news item on GNP to include some comment on more meaningful context. For example “GNP rose slightly this month, but we don’t expect that to have an effect on the CIW because . . .” I think our news media is guilty of biased reporting whenever it reports on GNP and doesn’t place that in the context of wellbeing.

Somewhere within us, we all know that some growth is good, and some is not good. When reporting growth, the media has a responsibility to help us discern the likely effect that growth is having on our wellbeing. Were the media to do that, we all would be more critical, in a good sort of way, of any growth occurring around us. And were we all to have that critical capacity, it would affect the policies favoured by our politicians.

 Eric Rempel