Frans Hals neighbourhood in Amsterdam where curb parking has been removed in favour of underground parking on Thursday Nov 12, 2020. Photo by Sanne Derks/The Globe and MailSanne Derks/The Globe and Mail
Well, Earth Day Canada® is now a "brand," like your toothpaste.
It's supposed to be about "empowering Canadians to achieve local solutions." Its mission is "to improve the state of the environment by empowering and helping Canadians to take positive environmental action." Its vision is that "Earth Day will remain Canada's strongest positive voice in promoting constructive and sustainable environmental values, actions and solutions."
Its website boasts a list of corporate sponsors. The sponsored activities seem to be mostly about picking up garbage on roads and the correct disposal of household chemicals. And there's going to be a gala this summer: "Join us and a capacity crowd of 500 corporate and environmental leaders as we show you just how cool going green can really be."
Earth Day was founded by Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator, in 1970, and I had naively thought it was all about the BIG problems that Earth is facing: climate change, impending energy shortages, environmental pollution, deforestation, soil degradation, water shortages, natural disasters, the population explosion. But apart from some brief statements for children, there's little of this on the Canadian website. A potentially significant idea has been reduced to product placement for gimmicks.
Instead of focusing on feel-good half-measures, Earth Day could initiate a useful discussion about the most significant crisis we're facing: the impending energy crisis. Rising gas prices are commonly taken as evidence of a corporate conspiracy or government incompetence, whereas what they actually indicate is the market response to real or perceived future problems with supply or delivery.
The U.S. passed its oil production peak in 1970. Americans can complain as loudly as they want about reducing dependence on foreign oil, but it's never going to happen unless some magic new development in theoretical physics finds ways for cars, homes and businesses to use less of the stuff.
While Canada has been labelled an "energy superpower," the oil sands, for all the hype, are likely to contribute only 4 per cent of daily global needs, when production reaches 3.5 barrels a day in 2025. Ninety billion barrels of oil - the size of the supposed "vast Arctic storehouse of energy," as many have described it - represents only about 1,000 days of global consumption. At least half of this is expected to lie within Russian territorial limits.
Green energy is a disappointment. Wind turbines generate at most three megawatts of energy, and that only when the wind is blowing at the right speed (records show this is less than 30 per cent of the time). They can't compete with a coal- or nuclear-powered generating station pumping out as much as 2,000 MW day and night. Even in Denmark, where thousands of wind turbines have been installed, the record suggests that only 9 per cent of electricity comes from wind.
The story for solar panels is similar. As for biofuels, the only people really benefiting are corn farmers, now receiving massive subsidies for a product that diverts vital supplies from food production. The new non-conventional fossil fuels (shale gas, coal-bed methane) and the new production technologies for dispersed oil all involve major environmental disruption.
If Earth Day is to be useful, it should focus on real social and environmental problems - and by far the most important, and least understood, is energy. Forget the gimmicks. We need to turn our attention to serious public education.
Andrew Miall is a professor of geology at the University of Toronto.