Who Is Responsible?
<written for the North Renfrew Times in June 2007>
Who is responsible for the climate change crisis, individuals, or politicians and business? Who is responsible for “fixing” things? I’d say it’s all of us, on both counts.
I’m not sure most of us have yet grasped that each and every one of us is capable of (and responsible for) doing our own individual part. And that, with respect to climate change, that adds up to a pretty considerable amount! We need to make changes in our personal lives (i.e., minimizing our personal greenhouse gas emissions), and we also have a right to expect our politicians to act in our collective best interest.
Concrete example: I walk to Pine Point beach often. I clean up other people’s “garbage” while I am there (today’s “take”: 12 pop cans, 2 beer bottles, 3 plastic water bottles, all of which I brought home for my own recycling container, and between five and ten other bits of flotsam and jetsam I fired into one of the garbage cans there).
Many people would say, “But you’re not responsible for that!” to which I would reply, “Who is responsible, then? The beach? The birds? The chipmunks? The river? The fish in the river that might ingest cigarette butts and bits of plastic? The small child who may cut her foot on broken glass?” I don’t think so.
I’d be delighted if individuals would deal with their waste responsibly, using existing garbage containers and taking home recyclables for the household Blue Box, or if there was a recycling container at the beach, so making the appropriate choice would be simplified, and also if families in town would teach their offspring not to litter our glorious beach.
Meanwhile, if I don’t pick up the garbage and recyclables and deal with them appropriately, the birds and fish may wind up eating things that are very bad for them, and our landfill site will fill up with materials that ought to have been kept out of it. I plan to talk to local politicians about some possible solutions, so I will be both doing my own personal best, and also asking my elected representatives and local bureaucracy to do theirs as well.
One area of our lives where we all have quite a bit of control, is our choice of transportation methods. We can drive less, walk and bicycle more, demand better public transportation, and use the systems that do exist (e.g. trains and buses).
Carpooling/ride-sharing has great potential! One Web site with ideas on this is www.carpool.ca (or just Google ‘carpooling Web sites’ and see what comes up). I’m convinced we could do more and better carpooling here in Deep River.
“Car sharing” is another great concept, and also a for-profit business! Check out Ottawa’s car share at www.vrtucar.com There is no reason why car-sharing can’t “fly” here in Deep River…
Of course too, our vehicle purchases are completely within our own control. If we choose to buy a gas-guzzler, we can’t blame that on anyone else, can we?
For sure, one thing we can all do is stop idling our vehicles! We know carbon monoxide is literally a killer, so it’s a no-brainer that unnecessary idling is bad for the air and our own lungs (none too good for car engines, either, apparently!)
What if we all committed to making “common sense” a whole lot more common? Some pertinent questions we can get in the habit of asking ourselves are: “Is this activity/purchase/behaviour necessary and sensible? Do I really need to do this/buy this/go there/drive there? What are the consequences of this behaviour/choice? What if everyone were to do this?”
“Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change” and “The Carbon Buster’s Home Energy Handbook” are two great books available at Deep River Library that can help us all reduce our personal climate change impacts.
I’m going to conclude with an amusing and apt quotation:
“Whose job is it? This is a story about four people named EVERYBODY, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY and NOBODY. There was an important job to be done and EVERYBODY was asked to do it. EVERYBODY was sure SOMEBODY would do it, but NOBODY did it. SOMEBODY got angry about that because it was EVERYBODY’s job. EVERYBODY thought ANYBODY could do it but NOBODY realized that EVERYBODY wouldn’t do it. It ended up that EVERYBODY blamed SOMEBODY when NOBODY did what ANYBODY could have done.