By Michael Ganley -- Climate change: the major challenge of this century

Acres of forest have been felled and barrels of ink spilled over the Copenhagen climate change conference – COP15 for the initiated – and I’m here to add to the carnage.

I confess to some trepidation when writing about climate change. I’m no expert on the subject (who is?) and I find it all quite confusing and overwhelming. Where lies the truth? Are we headed to Armageddon? Can we actually do anything about it or is that hope just another example of our hubris? Those are just a few of the questions that rattle around in my head when I try to think about six billion people trying to reinvent political, economic and social systems that have been headed in one direction – expansion – for centuries.

One thing I don’t doubt is that the climate is changing. Those of us in the North ought to know this better than anyone. The ice – both between the islands of the Arctic Archipelago and on the lake at the edge of town – is thinner and more sparse than it was in the past; the waves are lapping ever-closer to the heart of Tuktoyaktuk; the roads and bridges in Pangnirtung are collapsing.'

No, what I find confusing to the point that I sometimes block it all out is, what are we going to do about it? Carbon tax? Cap and trade? Never fly? Eat less beef? Don’t have kids?

One thing we can’t do is ask for exemptions. Nothing was more disappointing than to hear that Canada wants to exempt the oil sands from having to reduce carbon emissions on par with other industries. This idea is in keeping with U.S. demands for exemptions for their “energy-intensive, trade-exposed” industries, which just happen to also be the biggest polluters. It is part of the Waxman-Markey bill, one of two pieces of major climate change legislation before the U.S. Congress. The bill would set a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions and allow polluters to buy and sell allowances. This is known as a cap-and-trade system. The bill would help some industries – those deemed to be vulnerable because they use a lot of energy (which will become more expensive) and/or they compete against companies in countries with less stringent rules – adapt by giving them special allowances to cover their higher cost of adaptation.

Then, Jimmy Stotts, the chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, called for a “softening of the rules” for Inuit because while they live in the developed world, their situation is more like that of people in the developing world. His comments were supported by Maliina Abelsen, Greenland’s social affairs minister, who said her government wants to increase emissions from moneymaking projects, not cut them. Many developing countries make similar demands for exemptions.

If half the world’s exempt, it won’t work.

Thank God for the calm common sense of our own Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier. “As we call on the world to change its ecologically degrading practices, we must not accept those practices at home no matter how desperate our need for jobs or economic development,” she said during her address on Indigenous Peoples Day at COP15. “Economic gain must not override the existence and well-being of a whole people whose way of life is already being severely taxed. We in the North cannot simply follow. We must set an example.”

What is that example? In a word, it’s simplicity. We need to simplify our lives. That means fewer cars, fewer sleds, less stuff. It’s in every decision we make. Every time we decide to drive the car, buy the kids a present, get some mangoes from Venezuela. How much stuff did you bring into the house this Christmas? My family brought in a tonne. Accept a smaller house, a smaller car, fewer clothes and less travel. This does not mean a smaller, less meaningful life. Indeed, as the ascetics have always maintained, simplifying your life is good for you. Doing it for the sake of an overheating planet is just one more reason.

Business is part of the problem, and must be part of the solution. Climate change does not mean we must abandon the profit motive, but it does mean we have to redefine success. Expansion cannot be the all-consuming goal. A growth in gross domestic product is not necessarily a good thing. Small is beautiful. For ideas and advice on how your private-sector enterprise can change for the better, visit carbonzero.ca, which helps Canadian businesses take action on climate change.

We in the North have unwillingly become the canaries in the coalmine. The ice cap is melting more quickly than even the most depressing climate-change models predicted. We should not be asking for exemptions. We should be setting the standard.