Blogging at the Big Dog

In the aftermath of the historic election of the first black American president, there has been much wrangling over the challenges he now faces and what kind of president he will be. As pundits grapple with the symbolism of the vote and Barack Obama’s iconic status, I submit this: it doesn’t matter.

Good, bad or indifferent, Obama has already done his job. He got elected.

One of the best things I heard during election night coverage on CBC was a quote from an anonymous source: “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. King walked so Barack Obama could run. Obama ran so we all could fly.”

Sometimes iconic is all you need to be.

The next generation of black Americans will grow up in a country in which King’s dream of a time when a person is judged by the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin is not just an ideal, but a tangible possibility.

That is not to say Tuesday November 4, 2008 represents the end of civil rights struggles in the United States. For example, while the California vote was a virtual landslide for Obama, the same people passed a resolution rescinding gay marriage rights. Furthermore, 76 per cent of African Americans who voted for Obama in California voted against homosexual nuptials.

Bigotry and discrimination is far from dead south of the border.

Still, it is progress. Progress Canadians overwhelmingly support. If we were the fifty-first state, Obama would have won here by five-to-one. The reason: we think it brings them closer to our own ideals.

Let’s think again. African Americans in the U.S. had the right to vote, at least theoretically, a century before Native Canadians did here. And while we have come a long way to entrenching these rights politically, both the U.S. and Canada still have a long way to go to remove the institutional and societal barriers to full democracy.

Also, while we see Obama as progressive, we are judging him by American standards, not Canadian ones. He is still way more conservative than our version of conservatism. How so many Canadians who hate and distrust Stephen Harper can love and trust Barack Obama is a little bit confusing. Oh yeah, there is that charisma thing.

In any event, President Obama is light years superior to the alternative. Even the idea of Sarah Palin in the Vice President’s chair sends shivers down my spine.

Much has been said in the last week about this historic election restoring the USA’s reputation. Let’s hope so, but it’s a long road ahead. There are still two wars to deal with, the unabashed greed of unbridled capitalism to correct and the growing threat of evangelical, rapture-seeking militant Christianity to quash.

As Leonard Cohen said, America is the cradle of the best and of the worst. The worst will definitely rear its ugly head again. In the meantime, let us just savour a moment in which the best has prevailed and that means so much to so many around the world. That change is possible. That ignorance is defeatable. That there is always hope.

There is a new breed of environmentalist emerging, one that has traded in altruistic ideology for a form of pragmatic fatalism.
Mark Jaccard — the Simon Fraser University professor who shocked his environmental buddies when he did an about face in his 2005 book Sustainable Fossil Fuels advocating oil, gas and even coal as humanity’s best long-term source of sustainable energy — is one.
In his new book, Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge, Jaccard predicts consumerism will quadruple the world’s energy consumption by 2100. Furthermore, he argues, because even the most difficult to extract resources are and will remain more economical than renewable alternatives for the foreseeable future, the only solution is to use fossil fuels more cleanly.
Steve Whipp — the ethical investing guru who breezed through his former hometown of Smithers last week with his seminar on climate change and investments — is another. Although Whipp is an ardent environmentalist, he is not above investing in oil companies. His message: there is nothing wrong with making profits.
Whipp, like Jaccard, recognizes there is no stopping the runaway train of energy consumption so the best bet for sustaining an environment fit for human habitation is not to change what we’re doing but the way we are doing it.
The bottom line is people are selfish. That is how we got ourselves in the environmental predicament we’re in and that is how we will get ourselves out.
We have to admit to our human nature.
We want.We want SUVs and toaster ovens and beer fridges and trips to Europe.
We also want pristine lakes and abundant wildlife and clean air.
The best thing the environmental community can do is embrace practical thinkers like Jaccard and Whipp. The lofty, esoteric morality of the climate change and global warming high priests is not going to curb our asquisitive disposition because most people care more about themselves than they do about “the planet.”
I’ve said it for years, this has nothing to do with “the planet,” but it has everything to do with us. The sooner we call a human a human, the sooner we can start balancing our wants.
The recent panel decision not to recommend approval of Northgate Minerals’ plan for the Kemess North mine is a perfect example.
Northgate Minerals selfishly wants to maximize profits. Miners selfishly want to keep their jobs. First Nations and environmentalists selfishly want to protect Amazay Lake.
Northgate is not going to walk away from hundreds of millions in potential profits from Kemess North. They will find an alternative for dealing with their tailings, just like oil companies will find a way to safely extract coalbed methane and airplane manufacturers will find a way to burn fuel cleanly.
Reducing consumption is not an option. Reducing the impact of that consumption is self-preservation.