Cause for Concern
I recently had a chance to see my favourite journalist/historian/writer speak about climate change and the effect it will have on global politics. I am talking, of course, about Gwynne Dyer.
Mr. Dyer was speaking to a packed theatre at the University of Alberta. His remarks were broad-ranging, insightful, and dryly laced with his typical gruff wit. But there was also a worried undertone that I've never heard from him before. Not the "call-to-arms", "let's-work-together-and-solve-this-thing" kind of worried that you often hear from activist speakers. His was a more "I-see-things-clearer-than-you-do-and-I-wish-I-didn't" sort of worried. He didn't say it out loud, of course; it was just something I noticed as he talked.
And when Gwynne Dyer seems upset, I get very concerned.
I'm already quite familiar with climate change. (Actually, I think I'm currently witnessing its early stages.) I think it will soon be a very serious problem, which is why over the years I've been trying my best to make things better. On their own, my efforts won't fix anything, of course. But at least I'll be able to stand tall and look the next generation in the eye with a clear conscience.
You see, as Mr. Dyer very rightly pointed out, the real danger in climate change boils down to exactly one thing: food. As the average temperature of the planet increases, the amount of energy in the earth's atmospheric systems will also increase. And it turns out that climatologists have a very good idea about what happens after that: the earth's two "desert latitudes" (i.e. regions that circle the planet about 30 degrees above and below the equator) will expand.
Places like the USA, China, and India will lose their most fertile land, and shortly thereafter be facing massive food shortages. Places like Canada, Britain, and Northern Europe will actually gain farmland, but not nearly enough to make up for what is lost in other areas. That's a very big problem, because it means that formally friendly neighbours will suddenly have very good reasons to fight with each other.
Walkability and New Urbanism
There's a concept in urban planning known as walkability. As the word itself suggests, walkability refers to how well-suited a neighbourhood is for foot traffic, and how easily a person can perform their daily activities in such a neighbourhood without needing a car.
Of course, the idea of living without a car seems crazy to most people. And with good reason. The typical North American city is very poorly designed for serious pedestrians. Most of us buy houses in sprawling suburbs, where they aren't really close to anything except more houses--and we think that it's quite normal to travel many kilometres each day just to get to work or buy groceries.
Things weren't always like this.
In fact, throughout most of human history, things were never like this. Just take a look at the tightly packed neighbourhoods in the older sections of any European city. It wasn't until everybody had cars and cheap fuel (sometime shortly after World War II) that the idea of the suburb really took off. Before that, cities were small and dense, and the only people who didn't live in them were either a) farmers or b) rich enough to spend weeks or months at a time relaxing at their country estates.
Suburbia was founded on the relatively new idea that, thanks to the automobile, even middle class families could now have a safe, clean country home with some trees, maybe a river, and lots of nature. These days, all that idyllic rural space has been reduced to a fenced-off yard and a driveway--but the trade-off for having it is still the same: when you live in the suburbs, most of the essential activities of life occur really far away.
This leaves people utterly dependent on their automobiles, which in turn means that they are utterly dependent on cheap gasoline. That's of course why everyone gets so upset when the price of gas rises. It's also why the American government is willing to spend a generation's worth of national debt to invade and control any major oil producing countries that get uncooperative.
But I digress.
Neighbourhoods with high walkability are one of the main goals of a growing international movement in city planning known as New Urbanism. This is something we're seeing a lot more of lately--for example, the billion dollar Century Park neighbourhood that's being built in Edmonton right now follows a type of New Urbanism known as transit-oriented development.
If you're wondering how walkable your neighbourhood is, you can try typing your street address into WalkScore.com.
Sicko
Michael Moore's latest documentary, Sicko, will be released in theatres in about a week. But Moore has already said that he doesn't mind if people download or share the movie for free, so it's already on Google Video, here.
I have no idea how long the free version will stay available (Sicko's distributors may not agree with Moore's generous sharing policy), but either way I highly recommend that you find a few hours to watch this movie. If you can't find it on Google anymore, then go pay to see it--it's probably the best documentary I've ever seen. Moore has dropped a lot of the overt political bias that he's become known for, and now it seems like he's really focused on making his subject (and his point) accessible to everyone.
Despite the (sometimes) lighthearted and entertaining tone of the film, by the end I was seriously disturbed. I started thinking hard about the state of health care here in Canada. I even ended up researching the Canada Health Act, just so I could reassure myself that things are better here.
One caveat. If you're under 20, don't bother watching this movie for about 5-10 years. If you're anything like me, it'll take you about that long to realize just how important your access to health care services actually is. 
Offended?
I read a lecture by Salman Rushdie the other day. It was about the nature of free speech and democracy, and I think he had some very insightful points:
The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted. A fundamental decision needs to be made: do we want to live in a free society or not? Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other’s positions. (But they don’t shoot.)
Also:
People have the fundamental right to take an argument to the point where somebody is offended by what they say. It’s no trick to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or to whose opinion you are indifferent. The defence of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can’t stand. If you can’t defend their right to say it, then you don’t believe in free speech.
I couldn't agree more. Many people seem to think that they have a right to never be offended. They think that when someone does something that insults or scandalizes them, they can demand that the offending behaviour be stopped.
As Mr. Rushdie points out, this is absurd.
