policy

LET'S FACE IT – the really inconvenient truth is that the age of unconstrained exuberance is over. Techno-industrial society has broken faith with Gaia and is now wrestling its twin demons of hubris and greed. It is illusory to think that anything can ever be the same. Nevertheless, not a single candidate in the recent Canadian and American federal election campaigns fully acknowledged the global ecological crisis or recognized the transformative possibilities inherent in today’s economic downturn.

Statistics are omnipresent in large-scale democracies, and recently they have come to play an important role in green politics as indicators of sustainable development. However, both the democratic and green benefits will be limited if sustainability indicators are not well chosen. ...

In Alberta, Canada’s freewheeling, economic success story, a market-based economy rules. So it’s not surprising that in 2002, the Alberta government chose to counter growing water problems in Southern Alberta with the province’s first water market. In anticipation, Theodore Horbyluk, an economist at the University of Calgary, said he believed the new system would effectively “transform historical licences into marketable commodities.” And in Southern Alberta, where some 20,000 licences make claims on water, there is considerable history to market. ...

With Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, I was quietly chatting with my neighbour on our front lawn. The morning peace shattered, however, when a nearby transformer exploded in a shower of sparks. The pyrotechnics that would deny my household three days of electricity sent me ducking for cover in a flurry of adrenaline-driven expletives. In cool contrast, my Tanzanian neighbour’s response hung in the air. “Matatizo,” he muttered. “Complications,” the typical Tanzanian euphemism for any problem, big or small. ...