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In search of objective truth

History and Commentary From a Prairie Perspective
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Today Jed Bush, contestant in the U.S. Republican select-a-presidential-candidate-race, told the world how much he admired Pope Francis. He then added in the politest of words that the concern for global warming expressed in the papal encyclical is not a matter for meddling by churchmen. It, he believes, should be left to expertise of politicians. This is the malady which ails global decision-making. The Pope’s concern and his actions are legitimate. Any politician of any party in any place who cannot understand global warming and its attendant doomsday threat is the overarching moral issue of our time is not worthy to hold public office.

 Any educated person capable of coherent thought understands there is a widely dispersed oligarchy that has profited and still profits obscenely from the extraction and use of fossil fuels. The money men of the fossil fuels industries see their next bonanza to be in the control of fresh water and agricultural lands. There is no national policy in Canada which protects our fresh water from being exported nor our municipal water supply systems being sold to private companies. The danger has become even more acute since the diluting of already weak environmental legislation by the Harper Conservatives. Any politician of any party in any place who refuses to understand that land and both coastal and inland waters are the inviolate heritage of the nation is not worthy to hold public office.

 Decision-making in a world in crisis is a process that involves politicization, sometimes almost wise, but more often as expressions of the greed and intransigence of fools. The missing element is objective truth. In 2015 in North America there is a glut of oil but a shortage of potable water. Future generations on Planet Earth will not cease to exist because of a shortage of fossil fuels, but without water, life, as we know it, will vanish. In the United States, the Colorado River ends in a trickle and huge aquifers are being emptied. Large commercial farms in California are losing irrigation water in order to meet the needs of municipal water systems. The number of sea water desalinization plants are increasing. Dedicated environmentalists still disapprove, despite the fact that present desalinization projects are far more efficient than the early plants and require much less energy in their operation. Scientists may be very close to developing high-output plants that make use of non-polluting energy sources. It won’t happen in Canada. Here, scientists involved in environmental research and projects have been discharged and those who remain have been muzzled.

 It is entirely possible science can find a way to produce hydrogen from water at a low cost in order to feed non-polluting fuel cells that could become the power for all forms of transport. It will never happen if nations misuse their wealth of scientific knowledge. Any political person who banishes the best brains of the country from the challenge of finding answers to the looming crisis of global warming is not worthy of holding public office.

 North America is gloating in the imprisoned fossil fuels that have been released by the process known as fracking. This process injects high pressure water and chemicals to fracture deep rock strata to release trapped hydrocarbons. In 2015, it has made the United States the major source of fossil fuels, although crude oil is still imported because the United States is also an exporter of refined fuels. Canada now provides one third of American imports of crude oil, having displaced imports from the Middle East, Venezuela and other countries. Venezuela, under its former leader, Hugo Chavez, flirted with socialism, a philosophy which members of the U.S. Congress consider to be akin to devil worship. Venezuela is now an economic basket case and nobody but the citizens of Venezuela care. American congressmen can rejoice. In the meantime, proponents of fracking say it is harmless and environmentalists say it is destructive. Missing from the argument is objective truth.

 While world governments invest lives and wealth in combatting brutal terrorism abroad and at home, the fossil fuel industries are attempting to cash in on the tremendous investment in producing, transporting and using fossil fuels. Unless insane terrorist unleash a nuclear war, terrorism will not destroy our world. But the constant degradation of the environment can.

 As a prerequisite to restoring Canada’s once honored position in the community of nations, we need electoral reform and a return to the supremacy of parliament. Justin Trudeau, scoffed at by the Harper Conservatives as a man whose only political asset is his name, has made proposals that could set Canada on the road to a reformed democracy. Trudeau is unlikely to become our next prime minister, but what he proposes should not be rejected out of hand. Any Canadian politician who rejects proposals that could lead to objective truth being paramount in decision-making is unworthy to hold public office.