A warning from nature for Canadians

• Published in: Toronto star
• Main Author: Romanow, Roy J
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto, Ont Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited 07.04.2011
• ISSN: 0319-0781

One of Canada's foremost environmentalists, David Suzuki, once observed: "I feel like we're in a giant car heading at a brick wall at a million miles an hour. Someone's got to say, 'For God's sake, put the brakes on and turn the wheel.' But everybody in the car is arguing about where they want to sit." Today, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing releases a report tracking trends in Canada's environmental performance from 1994 to 2009. My hope is that it will empower Canadians to say, "For God's sake, put the brakes on and turn the wheel" because we can no longer accept - in this country or any other - the degradation stemming from our seemingly endless and unsustainable appetite for fossil fuels, water, metals and energy. The notion of limitless growth is no longer a viable economic paradigm. The CIW Network - an independent, non-partisan group of Canadian and world-leading experts now based in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo - has put forward a number of ideas for positive change. These include: improving enforcement of environmental policy, encouraging consumers to spend their money in a way that "votes" for the type of world they would like to see, sharing ownership of resources like bicycles and cars, and becoming ecologically literate and passing that learning on to future generations.