MAY 1st, 2023 | ALLAN RAY

If We Cut The Crap, Everyone Would Support Sustainability

Instead, people have lost trust in science.

Sustainability is a conservative principle. The problem for most of us on the right, however, is that the word has been tied to climate change and radical environmentalism. On its own, sustainability is environmentally friendly, but the radical left has created unnecessary resistance to the idea by making it about climate change. On the left, sustainability has nothing to do with saving the planet, but everything to do with imposing an idealistic world vision on the rest of us. For politicians, saving the environment is all about enriching themselves and their friends.

We know that creating new taxes only serves one purpose, which is to increase government revenues to fund more social programs, more wars, more debt servicing and bigger pensions for retired politicians. Some have suggested, with compelling evidence, that carbon taxes and other climate initiatives could be designed to slow global population growth through wealth redistribution. No matter the reason, taxation has only ever served to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The same is true with climate change and carbon taxes.

As national debts soar to historic levels, governments are finding new ways to tax more people. Many of these new forms of taxation are being cleverly dressed up as ways to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. Sometimes the revenues are transferred to private coffers to fund initiatives to develop more sustainable technologies. Consequently, corporations and their investors reap the rewards at the taxpayer's expense, without any truly effective technologies ever reaching the market. Both solar and wind have remained expensive and unsustainable. Those technologies are making progress, but not fast enough to stave off the global disaster we are allegedly facing.

If global leaders really wanted to get everyone on board for sustainability, they would have never based the idea around taxation and scientific fallacies about global temperatures. The efforts and money that have been funnelled into making people believe distorted science could have been more wisely spent on bringing everyone onto the same page with honest ideas. Instead, billions have been pilfered for initiatives that transfer wealth around the globe and into the pockets of wealthy corporations and NGOs.

Real sustainability is not only appealing to most people, it is logical and cost effective.

In many jurisdictions around the world, collecting rain water is illegal. To date, there are no United Nations initiatives that have been successful at building enough desalination plants to solve Africa's water scarcity. In most Canadian municipalities, owning chickens is illegal and having solar panels still requires homeowners to pay for electricity they don't use.

One can't help but notice how bizarre and discouraging rules around sustainability have become. When these laws and anti-sustainability practices come into focus, it becomes more evident that our leaders have no real interest in saving the planet or encouraging us to be more sustainable. Their only interests are the wealth-transfer schemes that enrich themselves and their friends, without producing any real results.

Had honesty, rather than deceit, been used to convince people to support and invest in sustainability, a majority would be on board with protecting the environment, conserving our fresh water supplies and reducing pollution.

Forests

Planting billions of trees sounded like a good idea when Justin Trudeau promised to do it in 2019. Unfortunately, his Liberal government has failed miserably at keeping its promise—perhaps because it never really intended to invest the required time and money into the project. It was only meant to be another empty piece of bait for green voters.

Planting two billion trees never had the potential to benefit the Liberal Party's wealthy backers, only the environment.

With Trudeau's failed promise comes another glimpse into the real agenda. Unless an expensive environmental project promises to enrich corporations and their investors in Ottawa, parties like Trudeau's Liberals have no real interest in them. Increasing biodiversity, expanding Canada's ability to absorb carbon and elevating the country's pristine beauty simply didn't offer a good enough return for Justin Trudeau's wealthy donors.

Water

We are more than twenty years into the third Millennium, but have not yet developed technology that is capable of bringing large-scale, endless streams of drinkable water to Africans and the world. The investments have been flowing for years, but an effective or sustainable solution has not been developed to solve Africa's water problems. There are several desalination plants across Africa, but much of central Africa remains dry. There have been minor breakthroughs in reverse osmosis and membrane technologies in recent years, and countries like Egypt and Tunisia have poured hundreds of millions into long-term desalination technologies. As of yet, not enough desalination plants have been built to pump water to 40% of the world's population that is without clean, potable water.

China is on the verge of a clean water crisis and the nature of Australia's surface water supply is vulnerable to droughts. Funnelling billions into desalination technology could derive a majority of the world's drinkable water from our oceans, but billions have instead gone into climate change messaging and corporate bank accounts.

To add some perspective, there are 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of water in our oceans, which is enough to support 10 billion people for 14 million years—assuming they each consumed an average of 25 litres per day.

Up until 2016, it was mostly illegal in Colorado to collect rainwater, but in several states there remains limits on the amounts and uses of rain water collected. In Canada, it is legal to collect rain water, but some municipalities and provinces have limits on the amounts that can be collected, as well as regulations on where rain barrels can be placed and what the water can be used for.

When it comes to water and preserving our sources of fresh water, it doesn't get much more sustainable than allowing people to collect as much rain water as they need and funnelling resources into desalinating the Earth's astronomical abundance of salt water. Getting the naysayers on board with honest initiatives to protect the world's supply of fresh water is the first step in securing their trust and willingness to financially support such initiatives.

Pollution

Cutting back on urban pollution is something no one opposes. Tying the reduction of pollution to the apocalyptic doom narrative of climate change was a mistake for the radical left. Effectively, the climate change fallacy and carbon taxes have turned more people against potentially beneficial projects and initiatives to combat air pollution.

Reducing smog and garbage in major cities could have been achieved decades ago, had the modern left been more reasonable and honest. With the cost of living increasing annually, fewer people are open to believing that climate change and bad weather can be stopped with more taxes. As life becomes less affordable, fewer people are willing to pay more for nothing.

Had governments invested billions into public transportation, maglevs, and speed trains yesterday, fewer people in urban areas like Kelowna, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg would rely on cars and be forced to tolerate horrific traffic.

Calgary remains one of the few major cities in North America without a train running to its airport. The only reliable and affordable connection from Regina to Calgary is the dangerous Trans Canada Highway. With the elimination of Greyhound, passengers have been left with fewer options.

Using honest messaging about combating air pollution two decades ago, without fear-mongering about a climate catastrophe, could have brought more people onboard for a more environmentally sustainable future. Instead, they spent two decades breaking our trust in science.