I have never understood the Australian plea for special dispensation. Canada has the longest marine coastline of any country in the world, but the entire boundary of Australia is ocean, and the first consequence of warming of the oceans is expansion — sea levels will rise as warmer water expands, and the impact on Canada and Australia will be immense. Canada, as a northern country, could complain that its energy needs are greater than those of other countries because of the cold climate, but Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ratified the Kyoto target in the knowledge that 70 percent of the public wanted it.
Whenever I land in Australia, I am always struck by the fact that the country has vast amounts of something Canadians would love to have more of — sunlight. Yet driving through the cities of the nation, one has to look very hard to see a solar panel anywhere. In many poor tropical countries, water barrels on top of houses or stands are simply heated by the sun. How can Australia justify opposition to Kyoto when all of its hot water could be provided by free, nonpolluting sunlight? With its vast desert expanses, Australia should be harvesting sunlight with immense solar collectors, developing innovative ways to exploit this resource, and finding markets for solar technology. It is disgraceful that John Howard, the prime minister, has sided with the United States, and theirs are the only two industrialized nations refusing to abide by what is now an international treaty.
Will Kyoto make a difference? Many opponents of Kyoto, including U.S. president George Bush, have argued that its fatal flaw is the exclusion of the developing nations, especially India and China, as signatories. It's an argument that doesn't hold water.
If India and China follow our path of profligate energy use and pollution, no matter what the rest of the world does, the ramifications will be overwhelming. But we cannot compel them to take a different path if we do not show that we recognize the problem and are acting to reduce the hazards. If we don't set the example, we will have no moral credibility with other countries that look to us as role models. And finally, Canada (and especially the province of Alberta), Australia, and the United States are among the richest jurisdictions on Earth. If we argue that acting to minimize the hazards of climate change is too expensive, when will we be able to afford to act? And if we don't change our ways, why should India, China, Brazil, or Indonesia behave any differently?
THE FINAL AGREEMENT AT Kyoto was completed late at night on the last day of the meeting. As delegates blearily congratulated each other, few could have anticipated the challenges that lay ahead. The Kyoto Protocol would not come into effect until individual countries comprising a total of at least 60 percent of the world's population had ratified it. The ratification process would take years, and Canada, for one, had called for “voluntary compliance” to meet the target, even though experience already indicated this would never work. The private sector always opposes government regulation and, when pressured, promises to work things out voluntarily — but it never works. In the years since Kyoto, Canada's emissions have increased steadily to a point where, if we now wish to meet the goal, emissions will have to be cut by 32 percent. Hurricane Katrina revealed the folly and cost of ignoring the advice of experts, and Canadians should demand that our so-called leaders weigh scientific and technological advice far more heavily than the yelling of economists and industrialists.
Even though Gore took credit for the Kyoto agreement finally being adopted, he knew it would not pass through the United States Congress. When he ran for the U.S. presidency in 2000, he hardly talked about the environment at all. Upon election as president, George W. Bush quickly indicated he would not support the ratification of Kyoto. Since the largest energy user (and polluter) refused to consider reducing emissions, it was difficult to get the rest of the world to ratify the protocol.
As the United States' largest trading partner and foreign source of energy, Canada was under enormous pressure not to ratify. After Prime Minister Jean Chrétien went ahead and ratified the Kyoto Protocol in December 2002, I was thrilled to receive a letter in January 2003 thanking the foundation for making it possible for him to do so. His letter concluded: “Your personal efforts and those of your foundation have been an important part of the consultation process and have also contributed to informing Canadians about the issues.”
Canada's signing was a very significant step but did not deliver the numbers needed to make the protocol internationally binding. The last country that could make that difference was Russia. I don't know what kind of pressure the United States exerted to keep President Vladimir Putin from signing, but I am sure it was considerable. Russia was in a position to blackmail both the Americans, who wanted Kyoto to fail, and the rest of the world, which needed the signature. Although I have no idea what finally tipped the balance, I would be amazed if it was because Putin wanted to do the right thing for the planet. Instead, I suspect he received assurances from the EU that there would be economic benefits to be had by signing. Nevertheless, in an atmosphere of despair and pessimism among environmentalists, Russia ratified Kyoto on November 18, 2004, thereby making the protocol international law ninety days later, on February 16, 2005—seven years after it was completed and a mere five to seven years before its end.
Iraq and Katrina should be wake-up calls to an administration that sometimes behaves like an international renegade, but the Bush — Cheney administration remains focused on its own course and agenda. I have absolutely no doubt that reality — more and more severe weather events, droughts, fires, climbing oil prices — is going to awaken the United States from its slumber on this issue.
I vividly remember the shock of realization that the Soviet Union was advanced in science and engineering in the fall of 1957 when Sputnik was launched. Americans did not cry “we can't do anything about it” or “it's too expensive” as they took on the challenge of the space race. Instead, money, energy, and resources were poured into the effort that not only succeeded in winning spectacularly with the manned lunar landing, but spun off a revolution in telecommunications, astronomy, and space research. And today, Nobel Prizes continue to be awarded to Americans disproportionately because of that commitment to science and engineering.
If we can get this great entrepreneurial nation to devote even a fraction of what is spent on military budgets and homeland security to use energy more efficiently and find energy alternatives, there will be a revitalization of the economy with green initiatives.
SIXTEEN
REFLECTIONS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
TODAY THE MOST powerful force affecting our lives is not politics, business, celebrity, or sports, despite the coverage they receive in the media. By far the greatest factor shaping the world is science as applied by industry, medicine, and the military. We can't go anywhere on the planet without using the products or encountering the debris of science and technology. When I tell children there were no televisions or computers when I was their age, they find it hard to believe and often ask me, “What did you do?” because they can't imagine what one did in such an ancient and bereft civilization.
Each innovation changes the way we do things and renders the old ways obsolete. Looming are even more fantastic technologies, from intelligent machines to cloning, nanotechnology, stem cell regeneration, space travel, and much more. There will also be enormous problems in addition to the ones that already beset us, like global warming, toxic pollution, species extinction, overpopulation, alienation, and drug abuse. Without a basic knowledge of scientific terms and concepts and an understanding of how science differs from other ways of knowing, I don't believe we can find real solutions to such issues. Scientists and educators alike have failed to ensure that scientific literacy is as much a part of what is considered a core value as mathematics, reading, and writing. The consequences of scientific illiteracy among the general public are not trivial.