Before our obsession with CO2, Canada was actually considered extremely environmentally friendly. This is because we have a huge expanse of greenspace, and our sustainability footprint is extremely low for a developed country. We use less resources than our country has space for. We replace our forests when they are logged. We have strict environmental regulations, and we have always been an environmentally conscientious nation.
In comes the CO2 crisis. Now, we have countries in Europe that are packed with people and are unsustainable lecturing us, because our people have a high per capita GHG footprint. The only problem is, if we keep our population low, meaning we don’t run a debt level that requires a growing population, we can continue to live like we do and not have an effect on GHG levels globally. By going further into debt and pushing for expansion, we are creating more of a problem for the environment.
People have forgotten that the environment is more than just GHG levels. It’s all about sustainability, and Canada has that. We can always move towards a greener lifestyle, but there is no panic. We aren’t even a blip on the radar of GHG emissions worldwide. We should be lecturing other countries, not the other way around. This whole panic should not effect us, but our government is using fear to create a moral panic that they can leverage for votes. Meanwhile, they’re importing people, which makes Canada less sustainable every day.
We don’t have to play this game. It’s time we don’t. It’s time we stop listening to our Prime Minister, who loves to tell us how bad our country is in a variety of ways to shame us into ignoring his faults, and we think for ourselves. We’re actually really fucking amazing, and it’s time we elect a leader who will remind us of that, instead of playing political games.