Green Daily

Today is Canada Day. For Americans reading this, Canada Day is much like Independence Day in that it celebrates the founding of a nation with speeches, fireworks and barbeques, although arguably there's a little less flag-waving and a little more beer-drinking involved.

But what it's got me thinking this year is how we – Canadian, Americans, Westerners - need to stop waiting for the world to agree on what to do and to take the lead in solving our pressing environmental problems.

Earth is a volatile place and humans have always had troubles that crossed boundaries, but in the past we only saw our little piece of whatever global hell was going on. 300 years ago, a volcanic explosion in the Indian Ocean could bring famine to New England and food riots in Europe. Our ancestors called it an Act of God, prayed for better luck, and starved or stormed the barricades as temperament and circumstance allowed.

Today we watch the world from space and talk and blog and twitter to each other incessantly. What happens in Mongolia is known in Milwaukee instantly, and in times of earthquake, flood or tsunami, aid can be rushed from one corner of the globe to another in hours. We also have a much better understanding of how what happens on one part of the planet affects people living elsewhere; we know that a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico will mean higher gasoline prices in Boston, and that flooding in southern China equals hunger in Indonesia.

However, more has changed than just our perception of how the world works. Now catastrophe is no longer just Mother Nature inflicting her dark whimsy on us - the human race has become the natural disaster.

We've understood this for a while. In Canada, we learned it back in the '90s when the Newfoundland cod fishery collapsed from overfishing, leaving thousands out of work and the fish stick industry scrambling for substitutes. We saw a more visually dramatic example of human folly a few years later when massive forest fires in Borneo caused by land-clearing blanketed Southeast Asia in smoke, closing airports, damaging human health, and ruining more than one picnic.

But the big daddy of all our self-destructive projects is, of course, climate change. 2008 has the consequences hitting closer to home, whereever you are – parts of the United States on fire with other parts under water, drought in Australia, floods in China, Canadian forests ravaged by expanding insect populations, and the disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic.

And although even the most recalcitrant governments have now grudgingly faced the fact that it's really, really our fault, we still do nothing. Nations bicker about who should go first, who should do most, who should pay for it, who should benefit from it, and why the hell isn't somebody else doing something? Kyoto is dead, and too little, too late anyway. Bali was a nice beach break for the world's bureaucrats, but achieved nothing.

In the meantime, the planet's climactic transformation continues, with consequences that are unpredictable but surely unpleasant for a civilization built on a delicate technological infrastructure and an eternal best-case scenario.

If we're going to pull ourselves out of the increasingly literal fire, someone must act unilaterally, without waiting for every squabbling mini-state and tin pot dictatorship to hop on board the green train. North Americans are among the largest per capita producers of greenhouse gases on the globe, and we have the ability to do something real. It's not just driving less; $5 a gallon gas will see to that anyway. It's about a massive undertaking equivalent to the Apollo program to develop and build new energy sources that are renewable and non-polluting.

Private capital may come up with the innovation, but the fact is that only tax dollars will able to fund the kind of infrastructure replacement that will be needed to solve both climate change and the end of cheap oil.

People will object. Given that it's the world's problem, why should we jump in with both feet to fix it? Should we care if Bangladesh sinks? Yes, because simple humanity aside, in a world with hugely mobile populations what happens in Pakistan or Somalia or Peru will surely come home to roost in Vancouver and Chicago.

Why should we spend all that money on clean-tech if they're just going to keep building hyper-polluting coal-fired power plants in ? Why? Because they won't, or not for long. Whoever makes sustainable energy affordable and ubiquitous will have a huge advantage in the economy of the coming decades. Imagine a North America where fossil fuels no longer have to be pumped or mined or refined or shipped or burned – who could compete? The nations which are able to really implement the next level of technology will sell it, and everything else, to the world.

In fact, there's really no downside to the idea, unless you own an oil company.

The time to start is now. Happy Canada Day, world.