Good bye, Blue Planet

It’s possible that I, and you, will be partners in the ownership of a pipeline in the future. I’m elated. I own a share in a power corporation, a gas company and a communications corporation (I live in Saskatchewan) and a provincial bus company a refinery and a bunch of grain cars. But I’ve never owned a pipeline. Whoopee-ding!

I’m not so much worried about the fact that future generations will have to cope with increasing temperatures that will produce massive desertification, that low-lying areas will be inundated and that the resulting famines, refugee pressures, civil and international wars will be the rule rather than the exception. I don’t have grandchildren, so I’m happy to trade other peoples’ future for the dividends my share of the pipeline will produce. I could sure use the twenty bucks a year . . . maybe thirty!

That’s always been the story, at least since the industrial revolution. You only have the space between birth and death to worry about because before you’re born, you have no needs. After you’re dead, of course, you have no needs either. But in between, WOW, we get the best advice from Iago in Othello I,iii: “Put money in thy purse.” Every person has to deal with the conditions existing between his birth and death; I’ve had to deal with it; your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will deal with theirs . . . or not.

Oh, I know. Individually and as a culture we use twice as much energy as we need. We’ve let the low-energy-consuming rail system go to pot, we light up spaces when and where there are no people about, we fly far and wide, drive here, there and everywhere. But here’s the thing; we in the west are enjoying the best standard of living human-kind has ever known, and I, for one, don’t intend to waste all these amenities, luxuries and opportunities. I’m going to enjoy them; let your great-grandchildren sit at home with a candle for light and a tin stove for heat.

Two things I worry about . . . a bit. If I live to be a hundred, I might actually experience significant degradation of the environment and the chaos it’s bound to produce. Secondly, I worry a little that a future generation will dig up my bones in a rage and burn them in the town square. But, of course, how much can that matter to me . . . today particularly?

Finally, the kicker-argument: the earth’s environment fluctuates naturally, there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, thank God. And so I retreat to my Bible, because that’s where I get my guidance. 

 Ecclesiastes 8:15, “Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.”

I’ve figured it out. Our pipeline will be about 1,300 Km. long. That means my section of the pipeline will be 3.7 cm, or about ---------------------------- this long. By some estimates, it’s going to cost me and every man, woman, child, grandchild in the country only $571. That’s a measly $154 per centimetre.

How could this possibly be a bad deal??