In an article in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, columnist Jeffrey Simpson wrote about how Canada has the worst record of any country that signed Kyoto Protocol.

It’s easy to understand why Canada is being singled out for criticism. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has abandoned Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and has shown an aversion to real caps on emissions. He is also refusing to take on new commitments unless developing countries like China and India take on binding targets.

It’s an extremely unjust position. You can’t ask poorer nations to shoulder the burden and do just as much as wealthy nations, especially when we caused the problem. Wealthy countries can afford to develop the technologies that will help us cut our emissions. Without cooperation, technology and incentives, developing countries will be left to make the same mistakes that were made in rich countries.Besides, countries like China and India are included in the Kyoto Protocol. Developing countries were exempt from reductions in the first phase of the Protocol but they will begin to take on commitments in the second phase, which begins after 2012.  As the chart below shows, China’s emissions per person are only about one quarter that of Canada, while India’s are less than one tenth. Over 150 million Chinese and 350 million Indians survive on less than one dollar per day. Both countries lack adequate housing, schools and hospitals for most of their people, and meeting the needs of their people will require their emissions to rise further, and much further if they try to follow in the fossil-fueled footsteps of countries like Canada. The best way to convince these countries to take another path, is for us in the rich countries to lead the way.

At three meals a day you would think we would have a better read on what we are eating and feeding to our kids, but in fact a lot of the ingredients remain a mystery. Sadly that sits well with the agriculture industry and some of our elected representatives.

Agriculture is estimated to contribute over 7% of the total global greenhouse gas emissions not including the energy footprint from bringing lamb from New Zealand or asparagus from Chile. Growing concerns of a cancer epidemic are often related to the massive dowsing of herbicides and pesticides used in food production before the product hits our tables. Genetically engineered (GE) food with its unknown health effects, fertilizer use choking our lakes and streams and an increasingly globalized food chain amount to a complex problem in need of some complex solutions.

But one of the easiest ways to make changes in production and consumption habits is to give consumers the information they need to make informed decisions. This is as true for cucumbers and cereal as it is for cars and washing machines. Gasoline efficiency information and energy consumption labelling on household appliances (Energy Star) allows buyers to compare products and make greener decisions. We don’t have that choice with food because there is limited labelling. What makes this worse is that we only buy a car or washing machine every 10 years or so but we consume food, day in and day out.

Like automobile and appliance manufacturers before them, agri-industry is fighting tooth and nail to prevent labelling from expanding because it suits their purposes to keep consumers in the dark, and information vague – if the choice is simply between which apple is reddest, they need to excel at only one variable. Once we begin to provide consumers with more information, there are more variables the industry must manage in order to win over the informed consumer.

What if consumers were routinely provided with information about where a fruit was grown, the carbon footprint to get it to market, the use of pesticides and genetic engineering? Consumers could begin to make informed choices on environmental impact and family health criterion. Extraordinary! And UNACCEPTABLE.

Companies like Monsanto work hard to keep food and agriculture information from consumers – vagueness about the food we eat helps them sell their herbicides and GE seeds to farmers. They lobby politicians hard on this and are aggressive to a fault.

Last week our federal parliament voted against mandatory labeling of GE ingredients in our food. (“Mandatory” labelling is key here, we have had voluntary labelling since 2004 but not a single voluntary label on GE food has been applied to date). Despite the fact that polling shows that the vast majority of Canadians want labelling of GE ingredients in our food, Conservative and Liberal MP’s banded together to defeat the bill. Despite the fact that there is little or no independent research on the long term health impacts of GE food, that over 70% of the food you eat may have GE ingredients and that over 40 countries worldwide now have mandatory labelling of GE products (some have outright bans on GE production), the majority of MPs voted against their constituents’ views and took the side of Monsanto and Bayer corporations instead.

Consumers want mandatory labeling, industry does not. Regardless of whether you are concerned about GE food safety or not, surely MPs should support the concept that consumers have a right to know what is in their food. What is the problem with knowing?

Improved labelling of the food we eat is a relatively simple solution in a sea of complex problems and solutions. Miraculously, some of our politicians failed even the simplest tests when they chose Monsanto over their constituents.

Bruce Cox
Executive Director
Greenpeace Canada

Canada is blessed with plentiful, clean water when compared to many countries. But this does not mean that we are immune from problems found elsewhere.

Increasingly we are hearing about communities with unsafe drinking water and impending water shortages. Our cities dump billions of litres of raw sewage into our waterways. Development or resource extraction of some form has crept into virtually every major watershed in the country.

There is also another development, unnoticed by most Canadians: provinces such as Alberta are introducing water sales and trading schemes that will result in water flowing to the highest bidder, at considerable risk to the environment and social equality.

In short, despite the perception of an abundance of clean water, Canada is clearly experiencing signs of an impending freshwater crisis.

The roots of this crisis may well lie in the collectively held myth of water abundance. Canadians like to think they are blessed with abundant water; a quick glance at a map would seem to bear them out. From northern Quebec’s mighty rivers, to the Great Lakes, to the myriad rivers and lakes that carve up our North, we seem to be blessed with all the water we need.

But viewed from the perspective of renewable supplies — the amount of fresh water that is fully replaced in any given year by rain or snow, and that accumulates in our rivers and streams before flowing out to sea — Canada has just 7 per cent of the world’s total, an amount equal to its share of the world’s land mass. Not exactly the endless supply most Canadians .

Once framed this way, it is clear that we need to move swiftly to implement an intelligent and environmentally protective water governance model.

It is in the interest of all Canadians – and our duty to future generations – to stave off the rising spectre of chronic water shortages, frustrated development, and further environmental degradation seen in other regions across the globe.

Encouragingly, recent proposals have been put forward for National Drinking Water Standards have been endorsed by water experts, politicians and the media.

Passing this important legislation into law would be great first step, but we will need much, much more action from our governments as soon as possible. Or it is going to be a fight to the last drop.

Devon Page
Executive Director
Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund)
dpage [at] ecojustice.ca

King Neptune, the Roman God of oceans, joined CPAWS yesterday at press conference on the Parliament Hill introducing a major report http://cpaws.org/ on Canada’s failure to act on protecting our oceans and the Great Lakes.
A God of few words, Neptune was accompanied by Sabine Jessen, manager of CPAWS’ Oceans and Great Freshwater Lakes program who pointed out that worldwide, scientists say our oceans are at a “tipping point”. She also reminded Canadians of the great privilege of being the global caretakers of the longest coastline in the world and of 20% of the planet’s freshwater. “We need to take that responsibility seriously and become global leaders on oceans.”
15 years ago, Canada committed to create a network of Marine Protected Areas — the aquatic equivalent of national parks — on all three coasts and in the Great Lakes. The target date is just four years away, but today less than 1% of Canada’s waters are protected. Canada is ranks 70th in the world in marine protection, a number all the more shameful when one considers Canada’s marine bounty.
The federal government took a couple of big steps recently by advancing a protected area in northern Lake Superior last year and finalizing one around a BC underwater mountain chain called the Bowie Seamount earlier this month. CPAWS is calling on the federal government to make oceans and marine conservation a priority, starting with finalizing protection for four longstanding candidate marine protected areas: Gwaii Haanas, Tarium Naryutait, Igaliqtuug and Manicouagan Peninsula.