Saturday is being marked in these parts as Earth Day, and the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) wants us all to turn the lights out for an hour at 8:30 in the evening so as to ponder what we're doing to the planet. Somehow I don't think that the viewing figures for Hockey Night in Canada will take too much of a hit. After all, it's only a couple of weeks until the playoffs start.
In case you don't know what to think while you're sitting in the dark, the WWF* has been running daily ads in the major papers to get you started. The tag line: "People are still ignoring the science. That's what I'll be thinking about".
Oh, puh-leeeze! If we're talking about "ignoring the science", there's plenty of blame to go around. For example, who is it that's ignoring (or rather, deliberately obfuscating) the fact that nuclear energy is far safer than coal, cleaner than natural gas and infinitely more reliable than wind or solar power? Or the fact that the number of people killed in nuclear power-related accidents is close to zero, while millions might have frozen to death in the dark were it not for nuclear power? Or the overarching reality that the availability of affordable electricity, starting not much more than a century ago, vastly improved living standards for countless millions of people? That's why, in developing countries, electricity is the second thing that people demand access to, right after potable water.
The WWF's vision of the future may involve taking us back to an era when most people had no choice but to go to bed as soon as the sun went down. Forgive me if I don't choose to go along for the ride.
* The WWF is currently headed up by David Miller, who was mayor of Toronto in the first decade of this century. He did such a bang-up job at City Hall that the citizenry veered sharply to the right in 2010 and elected Rob Ford. You wouldn't want that on your CV!
No comments:
Post a Comment