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In one decade greenhouse gas emissions rose more than 18 percent, due mainly to vehicles and the fossil fuel production industries.
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Taking the heat
Our generation gets burned by global warming
By Diana Gee-Silverman
When my parents’ 12-year-old Saab finally bit the dust in the early 1980s, I insisted
that we were better off without a car. Unable to find a solid argument to defeat an opinionated
eight-year-old environmentalist, they put off buying a new vehicle. This one-year experiment
has lasted for over 15 years.
At the time, my parents were more concerned with appeasing their daughter than reducing
greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) or supporting alternative modes of transport. Now, with gas
prices pumping past the dollar mark, every consumer is considering her options and calculating
the benefits of efficient cars, biking and bus passes. But it’s not just about cars — we
need alternative energy sources for almost everything.
We were taught the meaning of the term “non-renewable resource” as early as
elementary school. We were told that once it’s gone, it’s gone for good, but
it was hard to understand the severe implications of that statement as we sat under fluorescent
lights in large institutions humming with pop machines and computer labs. The reality is
that fossil fuels are now being consumed 100,000 times faster than they are being formed.
I am part of a generation that grew up enjoying the benefits of seemingly boundless supplies
of energy. But within my lifetime, the sources of the energy I have enjoyed will be gone.
The apex of the energy crisis will be the defining issue of my time — it will be my
generation’s albatross.
Canadians are the heaviest users of energy in the world on a per-capita basis. According
to the 2004 Statistics Canada report Energy in Canada, in 2002 each Canadian
consumed just over 353 gigajoules of energy, compared with 222 gigajoules in 1967.
A full 30-litre tank of gas contains approximately one gigajoule of energy, which means we
each use the equivalent of 3,930 litres more gas each year than previous generations.
Between 1990 and 2001, GHG emissions rose more than 18 percent, with energy-related
emissions responsible for virtually all of the increase. The major contributors to this hike
were electricity and heat generation, vehicles and the fossil fuel production industries.
Our energy ‘Plan A’ is going up in flames. We cannot maintain our energy use
and production status quo, not to mention we’re killing our environment. We need to
fall back on an energy plan that will meet our needs and those of future generations, as
well. That would be ‘Plan B’. Too bad we don’t have one.
“Use less energy. Conserve water and resources. Reduce waste.” So says comedian
Rick Mercer, encouraging Canadians to take part in the national One
Tonne Challenge campaign to reduce their annual GHG by one tonne. The trouble is that
we have been exposed to similar slogans our whole lives. Very little has changed.
I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve heard the words ‘energy
crisis’ in recent years. It’s become such a cliché that the phrase is
meaningless in our day-to-day lives. Perhaps that is why apathy is the general rule of my
generation. When you’re constantly told the world’s about to end because of how
we burn energy, even the most avid young environmentalist eventually gives in, knowing she
can’t beat large corporations and generations of energy misuse.
The problem is our generation no longer has the luxury of giving in. Even though we’d
like to bury our heads in the sand and wait for our children to solve our energy woes, we
will have no choice but to find an answer, or else the sand will turn to glass with the heat
of global warming and shatter beneath us.
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